airplane bento

Today's airplane bento lunch, for the Salt Lake City to St. Louis leg of my trip. My seatmate had his window closed so it doesn't look so great, but it held up nicely in my carry-on after being tossed and tumbled and jostled about from house to car to airport to security to plane to another airport to another plane. Not too shabby.

(I know I've been lax about posting bento pics for awhile. I have been both packing and taking pics of them, just haven't gotten around to uploading. Someday.)

the obligatory foot selfie @ pdx

They started the tear up on Friday so of course I had to seize my last opportunity for a foot selfe on the iconic Portland airport carpet (if you've somehow missed the big to do about the replacement and are wondering what the big deal is about a freaking carpet...well, Google is your friend).

my unintentional year in review

It's both coincidental and not that the last post on this here website (7(!) months ago) was a reflection about how blessed we are. It would've been a good stand-in for the obligatory end-of-the-old-start-of-the-new year post, and I suppose still is, since everything I wrote about then is still true. But on the whole, 2013 was a hard year, and by the end, I wanted nothing more than to see it in my rearview mirror. Hence the dearth of posting.

I've had a lot to share. I have drafts of posts I never got the time to finish, loads and loads of pictures to upload, bentos pics to update, and of course Hall House projects to finish writing about. But things were busy, like they always are, and as the amount of things to post about built up, it started to become A Thing.

And then November happened. Well technically, the end of October to the end of November, but I'm getting ahead of myself.

I was apprehensive about 2013 from the beginning, and as soon as I returned to work from the holidays, found out I had good reason to be.  From the first day back, we were faced with some big challenges at the office that ended up taking months to resolve, a friend received terrible news, and it was looking increasingly likely that the plans I'd made for my milestone birthday would have to be cancelled. By the end of the first month, I had fired January altogether and put 2013 on notice.

at Manzanita, looking toward Neahkahnie MountainThankfully, my birthday plans didn't have to be cancelled, after all. I celebrated my 40th in several ways, with family and with Sal and with my own quiet little sojourn. And later, with the Albino, whose birthday is just a month after mine, and our mutual friend, Twinklebugs. A year in the making, we celebrated the entry into our fifth decade with a Girls' Weekend in Manzanita. We rented a house on the beach and when we weren't just staring out the windows, we were out on the sand and shopping and eating ridiculously good food and staying up very late talking.

the rapiers are the prettiest, but the longswords are the most funSigns continued that 2013 might not be so bad after all. In April, I attended the first ever Swords for Scribes workshop put on by my friend Kim and her partner. I got to handle swords and machetes and rapiers, oh my, and practice three different sequences and learn all the awesomely gruesome physics of blades in battle. We then vanquished a melon army and watched a live duelling session between people who know what they're doing. I also learned that I am madly in love with the two-handed long sword.

Lake Quinault LodgeOur summer technically kicked off in May, when we spent a long weekend at Lake Quinault Lodge on the Olympic Peninsula, which I planned to post about in yet another brilliantly-written-only-in my-head post. We lucked out with temps in the 80s all weekend and a cabin room with an unparalleled view. We dangled our feet in the water and snapped pics of an otter swimming around the dock and climbed the roots of an ancient Sitka spruce. We took an epic 5 mile trail hike, up ravines, past waterfalls, and through a wetland.

My mom and grandmother came out for a visit for five days at the end of May, and we ran them (gently) ragged, to rose gardens and the forestry museum, Powell's and a plant nursery. We enjoyed dinner at the OCI restaurant so Grandmother could eat the food Sal teaches his students to make, and we enjoyed dinner at our own humble kitchen so Grandmother could eat the food Sal masterfully creates. We made a trip down to my office, so she could see where I work at my "very grownup job". And we spent a significant time doing my Grandmother's favorite thing of all: Visiting. (My family doesn't just talk. We visit, which is talking taken to the level of an Olympic sport, because my family are world-class caliber visitors.) We started a list of the things we'll do during her next visit.

summer vacation in OceansideAt the end of June, we took our summer vacation to Oceanside and enjoyed a nice bit of time off together. We celebrated our 17th anniversary in mid-July with a driveabout, something we hadn't done in a long time. Our destination? The Arctic Circle in Prineville so we could have a Bounty Burger and fry sauce like the ones we had at the Arctic Circle in our hometown back in the day.

Crooked River Canyon, looking eerily similar to our Wyoming homeOur driveabout led us to the Crooked River Canyon and we had the best, best day of adventure, windows rolled down and singing to our favorite road music at the top of our lungs and making it to a gas station juuuuuust in time on the way home. We capped off our wonderful day with a romantic dinner of takeout pizza by candlelight and talking until late into the night, hands held and maybe tears of gratitude a time or two.

it's been more than 13 years since we'd last had a Taco Johns softshell, and it tasted just like we remembered(We made a similar nostalgic fast food daytrip on Labor Day weekend, this time to TriCities, which we'd never been to before but happens to be the nearest location of a Taco John's. Because sometimes, you just gotta drive three and a half hours for six pack and a pound.)

rain, rain, glorious rainThe beautiful weather that started in May continued almost unbroken through the first half of September, which is how I found out there really is such a thing as Summer SAD and wow, do I have every single symptom. If there ever was any doubt that the PNW is my homeland, this summer cleared that up definitively. I actually like summer okay, and Oregon summers are pleasant and mild for the most part. But I do battle insomnia and loss of appetite when the weather turns warmer and this year, they came with a low burn anxiety that had me agitated and restless by mid-August. But the rains finally came in mid-September and we crossed into blessedly cool and wonderful autumn at last. It took a few weeks, but I started to feel like my old self again.

Really, 2013 could've been an okay year, my struggles with the summer notwithstanding. But there had been one particular shadow casting a long silhouette across everything all year, and in the back of my mind, I knew something very hard was coming.

Back in January amidst all the work stuff, my dear friend and colleague and mentor, Geri, received terrible health news. The kind of news that measures time in weeks and not years. The kind of news that brings everything else to a stop. Two months, they said. Maybe three.

She leaped into a battle for more time. Not time for the sake of it, nor time increasingly occupied by specialists and last-ditch treatments. She was determined to have good, quality, make-the-most-of-it, leave-no-regrets time. And warrior that she was, she wrested eight extra months of time from that initial diagnosis and in true Geri fashion, she packed a whole lot of living into it.

I was one of many incredibly fortunate beneficiaries of that extra time so fiercely fought for. We met for lunch regularly and I visited her at home when treatments left her tired. We texted all the time. We played epic rounds of Word Feud and Draw Something until well past either of our bed times. She regaled me with tales of a life well-lived, of a fearless woman who blazed trails and kicked asses left, right, and center while wearing very fashionable footwear. I showed her whatever artwork I'd recently finished and told her all my funniest stories and caught her up on the latest goings on at the office. I got to visit with her and laugh with her and hug her and hold her hand. I got to make sure she knew, every time, how important she was to me.

Her partner very kindly notified me the morning she died, and my colleagues very kindly shouldered the responsibility of figuring out how best to notify our staff, and my husband very kindly asked me what did I need. It was a pretty fall day, season of my heart, all blue sky and autumn colors ablaze in technicolor intensity, the kind of day that's so brilliant your soul feels too small to contain it all, and as I sat looking out our kitchen window, I knew it was a day to be outside, breathing that air and digging in the earth, connecting to life in a profoundly simple way.

the lilac my mom bought for my new homeIt's a tradition in my family to plant something to mark events and occasions and to remember those we love. A lilac for a mother's day, perhaps, maybe a pretty clematis for a birthday. A favorite rose bush to mark a great grandmother's passing, a silver leafed tree to mark a daughter's graduation, a willow for a significant anniversary. Geri was a gardener -- she would appreciate such a tradition. A tree would honor her well.

At the nursery, as we wandered among maples and oaks and birch and ash, I thought a lot about her, touching each trunk -- was this Geri's tree? This one? Maples are my favorite, but the birches kept drawing our attention. The birch is a symbol of renewal and strength, the first to leaf when spring hasn't yet taken firm hold, quick to repopulate after the ravages of fire. Resilient in times of adversity, spreading beauty and comfort where they're most needed, a symbol of hope and a reminder that the dark days will brighten. Yes, that was Geri.

Geri's treeWe decided on a birch variety called 'royal frost', which has red and burgundy leaves in spring and summer, turning gold in fall, and striking salmon-colored bark until it matures. We made a prominent place for it in our back yard near the stump of the old apple tree we had to take down last year, tucked in among ferns and bleeding hearts and snowberries and heuchera. That pretty salmon bark stood out beautifully, the last few leaves burning dark burgundy against the late October sky. Damp dark earth, sharp scented bark mulch, a hummingbird hovering nearby as if to oversee our informal little ritual.

The serenity of that day became a touchpoint of calm in the weeks that followed. There was the office remodel that became both a logistical and scheduling headache, the abrupt demise of my laptop a week before my clients' websites needed their monthly updates, the scramble to get the house ready for an appraisal for a refinance that moved faster than expected. There was my granddad in the hospital, and a week later, my dad. My granddad's surgery went well, thankfully. Dad's surgery did, too, but there were complications and days of worry and frequent check-ins, waiting to hear if everything was going to be okay.

There was Geri's memorial. There were the hard days that followed.

There was a health scare for Smaug that saw us at Dove Lewis (emergency veterinary hospital) at 1 AM on a Monday night, where we waited for nearly five hours through a series of tests and scans, ending in inconclusive results and us returning home long enough for an hour nap before our regular vet opened for more tests.

There was me forgetting the disk with the scans from the hospital in the rush to get out the door, which meant Sal had to bring them to me instead of getting a couple of hours sleep before work, and all of that complicated by a financial snafu that threatened to derail the refinance, which Sal heroically straightened out while we waited for the vet. Afterward, there was a mad dash to the office for a meeting, still in my clothes from the night before and barely able to keep my eyes open. There was a text from Sal when I got out of my meeting that his laptop stopped working because of course it had.

the day Smaug returned from her ordeal at the hospital and the vetSmaug's recovered, thankfully, from what turned out to be an e.coli infection. But she and Hobbes will be 18 in a few months, and she doesn't bounce back like she used to. They've been slowing down a bit this last year, but she seems to be aging quicker since this last incident. I have a feeling that this was probably our last Christmas with her, and as close as she and Hobbes are, wouldn't be surprised if he follows her soon after. They both seem okay, but something seems to have changed, and I feel like she's giving us little signs to prepare ourselves. Maybe for months, maybe for longer. Maybe not.

         

So we make extra extra sure to enjoy our time with them each day, and continue to be grateful for the many years of joy and immeasurable love they have brought into our lives. We will let them go gracefully and painlessly when their time comes, whenever it does. I don't know how I will face those days, or a home without their delightfully demented and crazed little selves. This is the price we pay for love.

But if the month of November was heavy with grief, it was not unrelenting. ProcrastiGirl got engaged and her obvious happiness is an infectious sort of joy. The appraisal exceeded our hopes, the refinance closed successfully, and we'll be able to start some long overdue projects soon. The laptops were replaced (after a not insignificant amount of sturm und drang, but compared to everything else, it's hardly worth a mention), and I was fortunate enough to borrow one from work in the meantime, managing through two months of client website updates without a hitch despite the disarray of our technology while we waited for our new laptops. Family and friends provided support and encouragement throughout the chaos. We squeezed in time for little diversions to relieve the stress. We enjoyed our annual Hall-Smiley Thanksgiving Extravaganza of laughter and fun and food and love.

And even after she was gone, Geri was still working her special magic. It was thanks in part to her that reconciliation came from an unexpected quarter, renewing a lost relationship. That loss was an old wound, deep, but long since moved past. But she healed it just the same, as if to remind me that she's still got her eye on me. On all of us. That was the kind of person she was, to have an impact on all the lives that surrounded hers. Renewal and strength, spreading beauty and comfort where they're most needed. Yes indeed, that's Geri.

Christmas Eve fogHeading into December, I think 2013 decided we'd had enough. December came with spectacular bouts of fog and downright frigid temperatures, conjuring something akin to the winters we grew up with -- as close as you can get in the PNW, anyway --which it made it feel more festive somehow. We had some much-needed time off together, in which we baked cookies and listened to Christmas music and watched every single one of our Christmas movies. A few days before Christmas, we dressed up for a nice night out -- dinner at Veritable Quandary followed by the tree all lit up at Pioneer Courthouse Square and enjoying being out and about in our city all dressed up for the holiday. We went to all the movies we wanted to see and took walks through the neighborhood and brewed beer and spent time in the studio making glorious artistic messes.

winter vacation in OceansideBetween Christmas and New Years', we made our winter pilgrimage to Oceanside, enjoying unusually warm days, a bit of sunshine, and the sounds of the waves soothing us to sleep at night. Sal found four intact sand dollars, the first time we've ever found one intact, let alone four, and that seems like a good omen. And we ended the year the same way we started it, with our Smiley family and all the little traditions we've created together for the last day and the first.

That's by no means all of our highlights -- nor all of our lowlights -- of the complicated year we've just put behind us, but they're the parts I wanted to share here, to memorialize. I won't remember 2013 fondly, but I do want to remember that so many good memories happened this year, too, and maybe 2013 was a lesson in taking comfort in those things amidst the difficult ones. To remember the symbolism of Geri's tree: of renewal and strength, spreading beauty and comfort where they're most needed.

         

         

ace of cakes

So...this is a thing that happened today. Sal said, "Yeah, I thought we were doing serious faces...".

(Duff is here for Feast Portland this weekend and needed a kitchen for prepping a few things. Of course he came to OCI, because OCI is home of the Kitchen Ninja. I MEAN REALLY DUH.)

weebles wobble, but they don't fall down

Although they have been known to spontaneously combust.

Man, getting ready for vacation takes a ridiculous amount of work. I'm not even talking about trip prep, which is a whole other raft of crazy. Just taking care of responsibilities so you can be carefree for a brief period of time. Job stuff, mostly, but even just trying to get the house in order so we're not spending our vacation cleaning is like trying to put out a forest fire with a cup of water.

We're both busy, it's no mystery why the house can so easily go from untidy to chaos in a matter of days...logically, I know these things. But after days of too little sleep and WAY too much stress, my reasonableness meter redlines and I'm all, "HOW CAN TWO ADULTS POSSIBLY HAVE THIS MUCH LAUNDRY WE DON'T EVEN HAVE THIS MANY CLOTHES WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH US I VOTE WE CHUCK EVERYTHING AND JUST WEAR UNIFORMS ALL THE TIME." Pile onto that the aforementioned pre-vacation job stuff and my inner overachiever coming out to play, and reasonableness leaves me to stay with its mother for a few days.

Which is why Sal's perfectly normal, "How was your day?" was met with a hyperbolic, overzealous, and borderline hysterical freakout on Thursday night. Only one more day before vacation commenced and it felt like it was never going to get here. There were no tears or anything, but something about the crazed look in my eyes must've tipped Sal off that countermeasures were in order. He offered to give me a foot massage and secured his title as Prince Among Men for another year.

So our vacation has officially begun and we are gleeful. Gleeful, I say! We have plans for around-the-house stuff and not-around-the-house stuff and lots of sleep and time together and kitty snuggling and movie watching and book reading. There will be absolutely nothing that resembles work of any kind. There will be beer brewing, of course, and writing, of course, and bike riding and meandering through the stacks at Powell's.

And probably more foot massages because those are totally the greatest.

the kitchen ninjas strike again

The new ad for OCI is up on their site! KITCHEN NINJAS FTW!

This is the commercial Sal spent a Saturday at the school for a few weeks ago. A whole day of shooting and there are only two brief shots of him.... The appalling lack of Sal-ness aside, however, they did a really terrific job conveying all that's great and awesome about the school and it's unlike anything out there for culinary schools (::coughWesternCulinarycough::). It will pretty much make you want to sign up for classes. I mean who wouldn't want to be a kitchen ninja????

OCI "Rock Montage" Commercial from Actual Industries on Vimeo.

and then we said "open", and everyone went bananas

Whew! We have officially survived the week of All The Things and are now on Day 2 of our Winterfest Vacation, aka Two Glorious Weeks (And A Few Days) Of Not Working Dammit.

The week of crazydom was not without its fun, however. Friday was the long-awaited holiday party at my office, and you will perhaps be a little surprised that a company party could be described as "long-awaited", and in some years past, I would agree with you, but this year...oh this year, I have a story to tell.

Way back in August, the Executive Team decided to "go big" for the end of the year party in recognition of everyone's hard work. We upped the party planning committee's budget for food, drinks, and decorations. We also decided to do swag bags, since our company has never really had products with our name and logo on them before. The swag bags would include a reusable shopping bag, a really nice insulated steel coffee tumbler, an insulated steel 1 liter thermos, chocolate bars with our logo imprinted, and polo-style shirts with our logo embroidered.

But that was only the start.

We usually have a raffle drawing every year for prizes (usually gift cards), but we wanted the prizes to be really big this year and for everyone to go home with something great. We couldn't send everyone home with a big screen tv or anything, but we could make the raffle prizes pretty spectacular and then surprise everyone who didn't win with something awesome, too. And when I say "spectacular", I mean it: 2 iPod Touches, an XBox Kinect (w/an NCAA Football game and the Michael Jackson Experience game), 2 Kindle Fires, 2 16x zoom cameras, an HP laptop, an iPad, 2 Kitchenaid Professional stand mixers, and a 50" plasma screen TV. For the remainder, the committee was given a list for shopping for the surprise gifts so they would know what we meant when we said "awesome": cameras, iPod nanos, Garmins, Kindle Touches, Wiis, Keurig coffee makers, cookware sets, and a food processor. (The Executive Team was in charge of the big gifts, so that even the committee didn't know what they were.)

So the committee has been on a series of shopping sprees for everything on their list for the last two months, increasingly running out of room as our storage unit. Space became even more of a problem for the raffle items, since we couldn't even let the committee members see those. At the end of the Executive Retreat on Tuesday, we assembled all the swag bags, then had to cram them all amongst our cars' trunks. But it was coming together and we were downright gleeful about what was about to come at the end of the week.

The committee worked their tails off all week getting the conference room decorated for the party (last year was the first time we did it at the office, and they made it look really terrific; this year, they outdid themselves). Wednesday, the committee and the Executive Team wrapped the surprise gifts, hiding things inside other boxes so nothing could be guessed. We stacked them all up along the far wall of the conference room, and I'm pretty sure that when everyone filed in at the start of the party, they assumed the prettily-wrapped stack of boxes were just for decoration to hide the IT station that runs the projector and sound system in the conference room. Little did they know....

The raffle gifts were set up on tables at the front but covered with cloths when everyone came in, with the swag bags all lined up underneath the tables. Once everyone was seated, we welcomed them to the party, took care of housekeeping (party schedule, turn off cell phones, etc.), then showed them the contents of the swag bag that they would be getting at the end of the party. We then announced how the raffle would work -- everyone got a ticket, which they would place in a bag in front of whatever item they wanted to try to win, and we would draw from that bag for that item.

And then the fun began. We slowly revealed each item. The iPod Touches were first and got a surprised gasp, and it just kept escalating. By the time we got to the iPad, the room was a constant buzz, and when we showed the TV, everyone flipped out.

After everyone had a chance to mingle and put in their tickets, it was time to eat, followed by a fun Mad Libs style game at each table. And then it was time for the main event.

The raffle items were a huge, huge hit. As terrific as the raffle was, however, the best was yet to come. "But wait! There's more!" we said. Pointing to the pile of boxes in the back that most everyone assumed were just for show, we told them that the they were in fact not for show, and that we would draw all the tickets of those who hadn't won, and when their name was called, to go pick one out of the pile. There were only two rules: don't shake any of the boxes, and don't open them until we tell you to.

Getting through the remainder of the names took awhile, and I think everyone assumed that whatever was in the boxes would be something okay, but nothing nearly as great as the raffle items. Maybe another swag item, or a set of knives, something like that. Nonetheless, everyone was still having fun.

Once everyone had their items, we gave them the go to open their boxes, and the next two minutes were the best two minutes of chaos pretty much ever. You know what it's like when kids are allowed to just go berzerk on Christmas morning and open packages all at once, and it's just a flurry of patterned paper and exclamations and noise and excitement? Now imagine that in a room full of adults who weren't expecting it at all, and who had enjoyed a glass (or two) of wine and beer, and you will have an inkling of what it was like for that two minutes.

It didn't matter that they weren't all iPads or stand mixers. They were nice gifts that no one was expecting and in many cases, wouldn't necessarily buy for themselves but really wanted. We encouraged people to trade if they got something that wasn't as useful, and by the time everyone left, I think they all ended up with something they were glad for. I tried to talk to as many as I could to find out if they had fun and to hear their individual story about whatever gift they got. For several, it was going to make a difference for an otherwise tough holiday -- a Wii for kids who wanted one but wouldn't have gotten one otherwise, or an avid reader who was struggling with sight issues but couldn't justify a Kindle, or a new set of cookpans to replace the mismatched set that were older than I am. A laptop that would make it possible to work from home, an iPod nano for someone who wanted but didn't own an iAnything (exact quote), a camera for someone who could now take nice pictures of the new grandbaby.

There's nothing I love more than giving gifts, except perhaps giving them to someone who really needed that little boost of magic and hope and joy. I've been blessed with some really wonderful gifts in my life, but nothing is ever quite as fulfilling as being able to do that for someone else. And Friday afternoon was some of the most fun I've had in quite some time.

Best. Company Party. Ever.

As you can imagine, the week was so busy that I'm behind on posting bentos, so there's some catching up to be done here:

Tuesday's lunch, Paris slimline:

• shrimp sauteed with garlic, toasted sesame seeds for garnish
• kale sauteed with garlic and caramelized onions (wow, lots of garlic today)
• brown rice
• sunflower seeds
• carrot sticks and steamed broccoli
• satsuma sections

Wednesday's lunch, Lunchbot Duo:

• boiled egg,
• shrimp sauteed with garlic, toasted sesame seeds for garnish
• garlic butter dipping sauce in the little cup
• kale sauteed with garlic and caramelized onions
• brown rice underneath everything
• apple slices
• carrots and celery
• sunflower seeds

Thursday's lunch, Fit 'n Fresh:

• romaine lettuce
• boiled egg
• carrots, celery, radishes
• apple slices, mandarin
• sesame seeds

seen on a local store sign: mace-free holiday shopping

It's a whirlwind here at Hall House while we power through these last days before our (GLORIOUS) winter vacation begins. The culprits: work, as always, and our usual hectic schedule, piled on with extra-curricular activities. Last weekend, for example, Sal was at the school shooting their new commercial, yet more evidence that I am right and he will be a celebrity chef someday. Right? He would totally blow all those other posers out of the water. Not that he would ever seek the limelight, of course, but with that laugh and that face and that gift for both baking and teaching, the limelight seems to find him regardless.

I've been recovering from an unfortunate tumble down some stairs, which has been a bit of a setback in getting done what needs to get done, but I haven't let it slow me down much. Which is a good thing, because there wasn't much room in our jam-packed schedule for any slowing down. In addition to powering through to vacation, and some important activities, there is also readying ourselves for the Smiley-Hall Family Christmas, an epic annual event that is not for amateurs.

Although we don't technically participate in holiday gift-giving, we do have a gift-giving responsibility as part of the Smiley-Hall Family Christmas. To wit: handmade gifts and stocking stuffers all around. And of course presents for the Fabulous Miss M, because obviously. And as a family, we are seriously badass at the homemade gift thing.

Which meant venturing forth this weekend into the bustling masses at the exact time of year we generally try to avoid them. Thankfully, the local shops -- while bustling -- weren't so teeming with humanity that we were tempted to contemplate homicide. Like the shopping ninjas that we are, we managed to get all of Miss M's gifts*, supplies that we didn't already have on hand for the various planned homemade gifts, stocking stuffers, AND groceries for a kick-ass spaghetti and meatballs dinner Saturday night.

*(Sadly, the WAY AWESOME Grammy and Nonna's Toys, where we have gotten every birthday and Christmas gift for Miss M since she was born, will be closing after the first of the year so that Grammy and Nonna can move nearer to their grandkids. If anyone's interested in taking over a really successful and beloved neighborhood toy store, I'm sure they'd love to hear from you...)

Yesterday was spent in the kitchen, each of us working on some of our homemade gifts. There seriously must be some kind of productivity drug in our water recently, because we are crossing things off our to do lists at a ridiculous pace. NOT COMPLAINING BY THE WAY. This week is going to be insanely challenging due to everything ever landing on this one week on the calendar (NO SERIOUSLY I AM NOT EVEN KIDDING), but if we can actually survive to the end of the week, then it's easy peasy for the rest of 2011.

lunch, pink Natural Lunch:

• hard boiled eggs
• broccoli
• carrots
• satsuma
• sunflower seeds

lunch (from last Tuesday), Fit 'n Fresh:

• red and green leaf lettuce
• beets, carrots, celery, radishes
• egg, cashews, apple slices
• simple vinaigrette of oil and apple balsamic on the side

the downside of time off

Days like this remind me why vacations are a double-edged sword. I was so on top of things before I left two weeks ago, feeling mighty chuffed and all-around confident about being gone for a week. Yet I returned on Monday and it's as if I was gone for a month instead of a week, and it's going to take at least another week or two before I actually have everything back under control. Urgh.

lunch, pink Natural Lunch:

• smoked sausages
• hard boiled egg
• green beans, with corn underneath everything
• Gala apple slices

drive-by posting

Back from a week off, which included a trip to the coast, a Day of Portland, a Hall-Smiley Family Weekend, and several days of nothing that I didn't want to do.

And apparently I got so out of my regular routine, I totally forgot to post yesterday's lunch (even though I took the picture). I guess that's the sign of a good vacation!

lunch, Ms. Bento:

• chili w/cheese
• half of a tortilla
• celery sticks
• garlic dill cheese curds
• Honeycrisp apple with dried cherries as gap fillers
• yogurt-covered pretzels

lunch, Ms. Bento:

• chili w/cheese that was originally arranged more artfully into a nice lattice, but didn't survive closure of the lid
• tortilla
• green beans
• dark chocolate covered raisins
• Honeycrisp apple
• kiwi berries

the root of the wind is water

reblogged on tumblr, taken from this comic on funnyjunk.com -- life at Hall House in a simple two-panel comic

The only good thing about coming back to work after a three day weekend is that it makes a four day work week.

Ahem. I may be having trouble shifting gears from "leisure" mode to "work" mode.

We spent part of yesterday at Kelley Point Park, then took a late afternoon drive so I could show Sal my secret getaway. (Some Friday afternoons if the weather's nice, I grab a book, maybe toss a few things in a bento box, and hop in the car for a bit of a drive to my secret getaway, where I can watch boats pass by and read my book and officially start the weekend.)

We sat for a bit in silence, watching the boats and taking in the view, and I closed my eyes to breathe in that scent of the water on the wind. I said, almost to myself, "I've come to realize how much I need to be near water."

He laughed and shook his head. "Duh. Took you long enough. Aquarius."

"Shut up, you don't know me." I laughed and bumped him with my shoulder. "How long have you known?"

"Pretty much since we first started dating. And then when we moved here, and the ocean...you know how you are."

I smiled and nodded. Yes, I know how I am. I appreciate that he knows, too. To him, I said, "Is there anything you need to be near?"

"You," he said without skipping a beat, and I fell in love with him all over again.

lunch, bento colors purple

• Thai peanut chicken skewers
• jasmine rice
• caprese salad
• carrots
• wax beans
• grapes and just bit of lemon cheesecake

Today's lunch courtesy of the veritable cornucopia on our table for dinner last night, thanks to the delivery of our produce bin and lots of yummy odds and ends in the fridge that added up to a bit of a feast. We grilled some skewers and corn in husks, I put together a green salad, cooked up some rice, and, along with the caprese salad leftover from Saturday and the lemon cheesecake Sal brought home from work Friday night, we ate like kings. Damn hell ass kings.

title taken from The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson, "Part V: The Single Hound, #51"

post-it perfectionist

North Head Lighthouse @ Cape DisappointmentOn the advice of a friend, I assigned myself the task last week of letting myself make mistakes.

I mean, obviously I make mistakes all the time, because I'm A) human, and B) not perfect. Duh. I am biologically wired, however, to try to be perfect at everything, and only years and years of tamping down that dictatorial little personality streak like a 1980s South American despot has made it possible for me to be okay with just being okay. Hooray for maturity!

However. When I am under a lot of pressure and facing mounting tasks with unforgiving deadlines and high expectations, my inner dictator seizes the opportunity for a military coup of the State of Brittney. I'm in the midst of just that sort of period at the moment, in which work and website business pressures are combining to make me twitch a bit with the effort not to Be The Best At Everything by trying to accomplish all my responsibilities at once. Hence the advice of a friend for a little radical reverse psychology, to not just not be perfect, but to actually let the mistakes happen.

She may secretly be trying to kill me.

Last week, I was at the office late, trying to get out the door but with three separate piles that each needed to go to three separate people, and three separate post-its to be written. It's a good thing I was in the office alone, because as I was rewriting each of those notes, I had to bust out laughing at myself. Yes, you read that right:  I was rewriting post-its. As in, I had done a first draft, edited for mistakes and clarity, then rewritten them so that they would read well and fit nicely on the selected post-it size.

I, um, may have some work to do on this not-being-a-perfectionist thing.

(Yeah, the picture above has nothing to do with anything, I just love it. The pics from our daytrip to Cape Disappointment are posted, by the way, as promised.)

breakfast, Lunchbot Pico:

• oatmeal (with butter & maple syrup in the condiment containers), not yet cooked
• raisins, to mix in the oatmeal
• peach slices

lunch, Lunchbot Duo:

• Sal's Amazingly Wondrous Wings (the very last of the batch made on Saturday)
• wee potatoes
• celery sticks
• carrot sticks
• tomato
• dark chocolate and dried cherries

pulling a cat's teeth is like poking a bear with a stick

Hobbes goes in for dental work first thing tomorrow morning, which has the dual benefits of being super expensive and really pissing him off. He'll feel pretty blech when he first gets home, but we fully expect retaliation once he feels well enough to start destroying something.

Poor guy has to have at least one tooth pulled and some treatment for his gums (he has early signs of peridontal disease), so he'll get lots of comforting and coddling. Both from us, and from Smaug, who ensures that he has the cleanest ears the vet has ever seen. Then he should be back to his ornery self within a few days.

In the office today to do a presentation this morning, so had to throw something together last night. We're set for produce, but as you can see, my protein and grain options are, ahem, lacking. I really need to put on my big kid pants and just get some shopping done instead of bemoaning the end of New Seasons' delivery.  Although I hear rumors they may put in a store here in St. Johns, so keep your fingers crossed for me....

lunch, Lunchbots Duo:

• hard boiled egg (notably, unmolded)
• carrots
• peas
• cucumber
• cherries
• blueberries
• dark chocolate covered raisins

on losing a bet

Because I lost a bet, I had to pack a bento for a coworker.

My friend and co-worker Tony, who has worked at my company almost as long as I have, rides his bike to work every day. Because of Sal's passion for biking, and his own impressive work commute, I've picked up a lot about the whole lifestyle of being a cyclist in a car culture (and more specifically, being a cyclist in Portland's very active cyclist culture), which means that it's one of the topics Tony and I talk about when we're avoiding work bored picking on each other chit chatting in the midst of being totally productive and not in any way wasting time.

It was during one of these totally productive and work-related conversations that I said that I thought that the saddlebags Sal uses are bigger than the ones Tony uses. Even though he's never seen them, Tony said they weren't, that they only make one size. Call it the sibling nature of our relationship, but next thing we know, we're betting on who's right. WHAT CAN I SAY IT WAS A MORE PRODUCTIVE DAY THAN USUAL.

At stake: two Green & Black's chocolate and almond bars if I win, a bento packed by me if he wins. And because he's an accountant down to his very DNA, and the importance of precision and accuracy were drilled into me by my engineering professors -- which means we are both monumental nerds -- we proceeded to very carefully measure the dimensions of his saddlebag, each of us verifying the reading of the ruler and making careful notes, along with stipulations as to exactly where the measurements were taken along the body of the saddlebag. I WASN'T KIDDING ABOUT THE PRECISION AND ACCURACY PART OKAY.

I brought Sal's bag in the following week and we performed the same measurements. Even though Tony said when I brought it in, "Well obviously it's the same size. I won't humiliate you by measuring it." And I was all, "Respect the rules of the bet, yo." Besides, my ME professor would have my hide if he knew I hadn't verified my measurements.

So I lost the bet. In the meantime, he had ordered his very first bento box thanks to that presentation I did a couple of months ago. And when it arrived, he announced that the first lunch to be packed in it, the inaugural bento, as it were, would be the one I packed to discharge my bet obligation. NO PRESSURE OR ANYTHING. But also: awww.

Tony's lunch, Concorde XL:

• salmon cakes
• sushi rice with green beans and carrot shapes for garnish
• corn as gap filler
• stir fry mixed veggies (green beans, onions, red pepper, broccoli, mushroom)
• carrot sticks as baran
• part of a Pink Lady apple, and raspberries and blueberries picked from our own bushes!
• strawberry Pocky

my lunch, purple bento colors

• salmon cakes
• sushi rice with carrot shapes for garnish
• steamed broccoli
• part of a Pink Lady apple with corn as gap filler
• Rainier cherries with raspberries and blueberries
• strawberry Pocky

It was a real challenge to fill such a large box (900 mL), especially for someone whose dietary needs are much different than mine. I stuck more closely to the 3:2:1 guideline than I do for mine, We'll see if it ends up being enough for him....

sisyphus is my homeboy

Just last week, we were here. Sigh.Why is it that coming back from vacation entails working extra hard just to turn the piles on one's desk from "OMG ON FIRE SRSLY SOMEONE GET A HOSE" to "does anyone else smell smoke"? Oy.

Joking aside, it hasn't been as bad as I feared, and even the damage in my email inbox wasn't so bad. For relative values of bad, obviously -- when you're used to several dozen emails per day, a few hundred emails piled up while you were on vacation is a downright miracle. Boulder, mountain, etc. etc.

Sal's return from vacation coincided with the start of a new group of students, which has made it easier for him to ease back into work, as well. So we haven't suffered as much as we might have otherwise from that unpleasant malaise that usually sets in when vacation is over and it's time to get back to the regular routine. Oh, we're still looking forward to our next getaway with relish, I won't lie. But not counting down the minutes hours days or anything.

(Okay, maybe I'm lying a little bit.)

lunch, blue bunny & moons:

• Thai BBQ chicken skewers
• steamed broccoli
• jasmine rice with fresh sugar snap peas (and a bit of teriyaki in the little condiment cup to add a bit of flavor)
• carrot sticks
• cashews and dark chocolate covered raisins with a bit of dried mango as baran

let the wild rumpus begin

Success! Our yard, which now looks approximately like the wild jungles of Borneo, is about to be beaten into submission. We'll have to pay someone to do it, but we found someone who was willing to take their lives in their hands and attempt to restore it to its benign Pacific Northwest unruliness. Of course, there's the very real possibility they'll go inside and be eaten by wild things with lots of teeth, but better them than us.

And speaking of Pacific Northwest unruliness (oh, I kill me with these segues)...Saturday night was the Naked Bike Ride (link is SO not safe for work, but this one is). Ostensibly, it's a protest against fossil fuels, or a way to highlight the vulnerability of riders on the road, depending on whom you talk to, but it's mainly an excuse for people ride around the city letting it all hang out. Which is always hilarious if you happen to be out and about and suddenly a bunch of naked people on bicycles streak past (that's happened to us a few times). Guaranteed to make you smile and giggle and be glad for a bit of gentle absurdity. But this year was notable because Sal decided to join in. And had a blast, so I suspect this will be an annual activity at Hall House. Don't worry, there won't be pictures.

I can't boast anything quite so daring for my weekend. Did some writing, some art, made phone calls, avoided work stuff. I also made the mistake yesterday of not bringing lunch in with me. Well, the mistake was Sunday night when I didn't make one to bring, for no real good reason at all, and then yesterday...well, yesterday was the kind of day that makes a person glad they don't happen very often. It was merely coincidence that it also happened to be a Monday, but it certainly didn't help Monday's reputation for sucking.

Anyway. Today has to be better because I have both lunch AND breakfast, my replacement debit card finally arrived (srsly, what a PITA), and our summer vacation (mine and Sal's) commences Friday. Eleven whole entire days of not being at work. Such luxury! And with the yard finally restored to order, we don't even have to go anywhere for it to be awesome.

breakfast, cute animals sidecar:

• molded egg
• cantaloupe
• red grapes

lunch, Ms. Bento:

• taco filling -- seasoned ground beef and rice, shredded colby, and a bit of sour cream in the little condiment cup
• flour tortilla and red leaf lettuce for the taco
• carrots and red grapes
• cantaloupe
• dark chocolate covered raisins and candied almonds (courtesy of Chef Sal)

a sudden realization about treats

I was up very late last night working (on stuff for website clients, not my day job), to the point that I convinced myself that I wasn't going to take the time to pack a lunch. Too tired, no leftovers to scrounge, no starches/carbs, too much work, etc. etc. The usual. But our organics delivery had come earlier in the day so I certainly didn't lack for veggies, and eggs are always an option, and no starch/carb wouldn't be any big deal. So I ended up putting one together, as well as a small breakfast sidecar. I even molded a couple of eggs and cut out a few carrot shapes. It was so late by the time I was putting it all together I just figured in for a penny, in for a pound, right?

Tuesdays include a very long meeting, one that goes from morning until lunch, sometimes past lunch. So as I sat during our meeting eating from my little breakfast sidecar, I was thankful that I'd taken the time the night before.  But our meeting went longer than usual and rather than order out, we decided to finish the meeting at a nearby restaurant (Macaroni Grill). Damn, I thought. I could've just saved myself the hassle of making lunch last night if I'd known. A silly thought, since of course there was no way to know that we'd decide on the spur of the moment to make it a lunch meeting, but I thought it nonetheless.

At first, I thought well, I'll just save my lunch for dinner, then. Consider lunch a treat, even though a part of me was bummed that the especially colorful lunch I was looking forward to would have to wait until dinner.

But once I got there and looked at the menu (which was perfectly decent food, if a bit heavy), I changed my mind. I wasn't very hungry yet, thanks to my little breakfast, and my pretty lunch was waiting for me at my office, packed full of veggies and food cut into cute shapes. I knew I'd feel better afterward if I ate that instead of the pasta and cream sauces. (HAHAHAHA ORDER A SALAD WHAT IS THIS CRAZY TALK?) My bento was my treat, I realized, and suddenly nothing on the menu could compare.

breakfast, cute animals sidecar:

• heart-shaped egg (with a small container of sea salt)
• mandarin sections
• fresh blackberries and raspberries

lunch, bento colors purple

• mini sausages*
• peas w/carrot shapes on top
• two halves a star-shaped egg
• corn
• carrot sticks
• green beans
• mandarin sections
• red grapes

never underestimate my ability to overdo it on a project

SO TODAY I DID A ONE HOUR PRESENTATION ABOUT ALL THINGS BENTO AND IT WAS KIND OF THE BEST THING EVER. As in, lots of people showed up, and everyone was enthusiastic, and I had plenty to fill the time. Srsly, I had a PowerPoint presentation and two picture slideshows and visual aids and food samples and a handout and a live demonstration. I AM A MONUMENTAL DORK OKAY.

Sal and I made fifty gajillion gyoza (which entailed us being up ridiculously late for the last two nights) and he also made the sauce stuff that goes with them, both of which were a huge hit with everyone. Oh, and he made bento-sized chocolate chip cookies, which I handed out at the end, just to cement the ranking as the best bento presentation ever done at my workplace in the whole history of forever. That's a pretty competitive field, if you didn't know.

Oh, and I got to do a show and tell about my bento boxes! Making my inner kindergartener positively giddy. I may no longer feel the need to bore random visitors with all the intricacies of single-tier versus two-tier, and the challenges of the round and square versus rectangular boxes. You all can breathe a sigh of relief now.

But because I am both A) a masochist, and B) crazy, I even packed a bento box right there in front of everyone. Which...I mean, I planned all along to do that, but because I am all about preparation, I had also planned to practice the night before to ensure prevent any unexpected mishaps. However, helping to cook up seven dozen gyoza in the wee hours of the morning will mean that you don't have time to practice packing your bento box to ensure doing it live won't result in embarrassment. Yet, despite my lack of preparation, I plunged recklessly ahead. AND! I even let the group choose which bento box I'd pack, just to add an extra degree of difficulty. BECAUSE I THINK WE CAN ALL AGREE I AM TOTALLY ABOUT LIVING ON THE EDGE. Thankfully, even that potential disaster turned out well, and I managed to prove that you can indeed pack a pretty and delicious and healthy compact lunch in no time at all.

And so now, I have a bunch of coworkers who are all talking about bento boxes and egg molds and there's talk of everyone going in on an order together to save on international shipping and it was totally fun and great! And also a lot of work! And I'm never doing it again because I am way too lazy! So it's a good thing it was pretty much the awesomest!

lunch, Lunchbot Duo:

• sushi rice
• asparagus sauteed with green onions and mushrooms (which I unintentionally hid completely underneath the asparagus)
• roasted red garnet yam shapes
• two gyoza (stuffed with pork (seasoned with soy sauce, ponzu, and other things I've forgotten), green onion, ginger, garlic, cabbage)
• steamed broccoli, corn (mostly hidden under the gyoza), and peas
• fresh mango and cherries

driveby posting

In the office today to do two training presentations and a webinar. A quickie lunch since I don't have much time to eat in between everything, and I'm leaving early (or hoping to). So.

lunch, pink natural lunch:

• molded egg
• blanched asparagus spears
• golden delicious apple slices, with some honey peanut butter for dipping
• more of the freshly shelled peas (lightly steamed) as gap fillers

clearly, i've lost my mind

And so anyway, because I obviously don't have enough to do, I decided to host a presentation for my coworkers to talk about bento. As in, I voluntarily decided to prepare and give a presentation about my lunchtime pastime for the people I work with. WHAT IS WRONG WITH MY BRAIN. Srsly, brain, give a girl a chance to just be a lazy sod for awhile.

This is actually an idea I've been knocking around for quite awhile, and then thought about for another while, and then came up with a plan and thought about that for awhile, and then finally decided to just go ahead and do it. See, I now have a small group of coworkers who attend the unveiling of my lunches each day (if they're around and I don't go to the park to eat) like some kind of weird but fun Hollywood event. I'm constantly getting questions about my lunches -- even though I don't eat in the kitchen -- and enough people have expressed interest in trying it themselves that it just seemed like it could be a fun idea that people might find useful.

I sent out an initial email last night just to gauge the interest before committing to anything. I've had 17 responses. That's about a third of the company. Holy crap, you guys.

So I've set a date (three weeks from tomorrow; I am crazy) and planning has begun. Seriously, there's going to be a PowerPoint and everything. This is what happens when I'm left to my own devices.

lunch, lunchbot duo:

• my totally awesome potato salad (potatoes, vinegar, oil, salt, dill)
• snap peas
• molded -- and dyed! -- egg
• murcott tangerine
• broccoli as gap filler

special snack, cute animals sidecar:

• another molded -- and dyed! -- egg (although it apparently didn't mold long enough, since it's lost most of its star shape since I first did it last night)
• murcott tangerine
• Sally's very delicious angel food cake