Bedtime Nightmares

He thinks he's funny but he's not. I'm talking about Blair, of course. Last night at about 9:30 we were flipping channels and came across "Silence of the Lambs." I love the movie, but it's not something I want to watch right before bed as I tend to take images with me into my dreams. So I left him to it, went to bed, read for about an hour, then lights out.

Blair came to bed about 30 minutes later. I felt him slide under the covers then his arms around me. "Night, honey," I murmured, patting his hand.

There was a long pause, then I felt a finger running gently down the length of my arm. "Goodnight, Clarice," he hissed in his best imitation Dr. Lecter voice.

Well thank you very much. I was up for the next 4 hours. He of course rolled over and went right to sleep. I had dreams all night.

There is so much to do I'm backing myself into a panic state of inertia. I've got 3 major articles due in the next month and I can't find any sources for one of them. Plus, the cat book is always demanding attention and there remains a ton of work to do on it. I need to send out for some "blurbs," or at least come up with the back cover copy.

I'm pulling a Scarlet O'Hara and not thinking about that today. I'll think about that tomorrow. I'm in Greensboro all day today, meeting friends, interviews, running errands, and haircut. That will probably be tomorrow's blog. I think I'm going to try and grow my hair out a bit, but I have the patience of a hummingbird and I'm sure I'll be back to having it all chopped off before the month of April is out. We'll see.

COOKING SUCCESS!

You may all now refer to me as "Her majesty, the Crockpot Queen." (Or perhaps just "Queen of Crock"). That's right, my cornmeal dumplings were pretty damn good. As was the butternut squash and the Italian green beans which, best as I can tell, means they are wider and fatter than regular green beans. (Said with all due respect to all my wonderful Italian friends).

I feel cheated that I just now discovered the crock pot. Almost every recipe is a stew which is not exactly summer fair. Maybe now that I've made my one dish and I'm such an established crockpot cooking expert, I'll dive into some side dishes. See if there's anything out there that doesn't require chicken stock.

On an entirely UNRELATED note, I've chipped my front tooth. Hey! I SAID it was unrelated. The tooth chipped before we ate the stew.

I have no idea what happened. I did a 5k charity walk on Saturday and had a doughnut and bottled water then noticed the tooth. Now I'm waiting for a call back from my dentist. They must get me in today. On Saturday my husband was sympathetic but yesterday he started calling me (affectionately, he claims) "snaggletooth." Sometimes I wonder if we're getting just a tad too comfortable with one another.

Hope I get the tooth fixed before lunch. I'm having leftover vegetable stew with cornmeal dumplings. And we're having it for dinner. And lunch and dinner tomorrow. And the day after that.

Those crockpots make one hell of a lot of food.

Crockpot Cooking

Fine. I can't bake, grill, baste, stir-fry, deep-fry, or even make a decent grilled-cheese sandwich. But we've purchased a crock-pot and I feel confident all my cooking woes will soon be far behind me. Surely even I can cut up some vegetables, add water, and throw them in a pot for 8 hours without too much going awry? (Shut up, mother).

Right now I'm three hours into a vegetable stew with cornmeal dumplings. If I manage to make a decent dumpling with this thing, I'm taking out an ad in the paper to announce my success.

I'm a little nervous though. The vegetable stew is comprised of butternut squash, mushrooms, garlic (4 cloves...no one come near me for the next month), Italian green beans (I have no idea what the difference is from regular green beans), Great Northern White Beans, and diced tomatoes. Blair would never in a million years eat any of those ingredients on their own so I don't know what makes me think if I heat them for 8 hours he'll eat them that way. But he'll at least try it or I'll pull weepy wife scenario #5. (I just wanted (sob sob) to do something NICE for you (sob) and make you a nice homecooked meal and (deep, shaky, sobbing breath)...and...you won't even TRY it. Waaaahhhhh!!!!)

Frankly, I just want him to be the guinea pig. If he eats it and remains standing then I'll try some myself.

A quick slam on Better Homes & Gardens. We purchased their cooking with crockpots cookbook so we would have some idea of what to put IN the crockpot. Being vegetarian, I of course immediately turned to the "Meatless Main Dishes" section. Tell me, BH&G, since when did chicken stock count as a non-meat product??? At least 3 of the meatless recipes call for chicken stock, earning this cook book the coveted DUH award.

Please. That's like telling yourself French Onion Soup is meatless b/c there are no meat chunks in it. Never mind it's entirely a meat-based broth. Are the cookbook writers at BH&G really so clueless or do they just not care? And how do I go about getting a job there?

I'll check back in 4 hours and tell you how the dumplings turned out.

High School Horrors

A friend of mine runs a Community In Schools program where she brings community leaders in to speak to kids who are in a school to work transition program. Because I am insane, a nice person, or both, I agreed to speak to this group on the subjects of networking and time management.

First off, I had major flashbacks as I approached the glass double doors leading into the school. It was near the end of the day and there were student announcement blaring over the PA system: "Congratulations to our band that placed fifth in state competition...Don't forget the soccer game this Saturday at rival school....All students driving to school must have car passes. Please see Mrs. King if you do not have your pass..."

It was complete deja vou. I felt 17 and insecure all over again.

But I like to think I covered well. I went into the classroom, peppy and full of energy, ready to WOW those kids with the dynamics of simple networking. They would thank me, remember me. Ten years from now when they were being interviewed by national news on how they achieved their success they would say, "I don't remember her name, but my junior year this woman talked to me about networking and opened my eyes and changed my life. I owe everything to her."

Ta-daaaahhh! I walked in and with a grin asked if anyone knew what networking was.

I was met with crossed arms, blank stares, and bodies slumped in seats as if all bones had been removed and they were doing their best to remain upright.

Okay. New tactic. I asked what sort of work they were interested in. People like to talk about themselves, right?

Wrong. They shifted left, shifted right, glanced uneasily at one another and recrossed their arms.

Mayday, mayday. I pulled out a flip chart. "Let's talk about who you know," I said. "That's the first part of networking."

Dead silence.

Finally, taking pity on me, one teen reluctantly mumbled, "Teachers, I guess."

"Yes! Teachers," I said scribbling. "Who else?"

Slowly they came around and called out names: friends, social workers, doctors, coaches, employers, church members, neighbors, parents, friends of parents, mechanics, hair dressers...we were on a roll.

They perked up a bit more when we got to time management, mainly b/c the class laughed when everyone admitted to horrible time management and they were always forgetting things.

I won't lie. It was a hard class to teach. I didn't realize quite how much I relied on audience involvement from the classes I teach to adult women. But it was eye opening too. I really don't think these kids were unresponsive. Rather, I sensed an uneasiness about opening up in front of their peers. Which I get. If you have a career dream which seems far-fetched, I can see not wanting to blurt it out for everyone to hear and--potentially--make fun of.

Surprisingly, given my not-so-warm feelings toward kids, the class made me want to go teach younger students. I want to get to them before they're closed off by experience and peer pressure. Or else I want to try again and find new ways to reach them. Even if I don't enjoy it, I love a challenge. And these kids presented a big one. I worry b/c the skills I talked about are basic skills needed to move ahead in life. But I'm not sure they "got" what I was saying, or the importance of practicing networking and time management. Admittedly, I only had one hour, but it seems odd no one has talked to these 15 year olds before about how to keep a daytimer and organize their time.

The PA was blaring again as I left, reminding students to prepare for upcoming exams and please bring in cans for the can drive which ends Wednesday.

High school. I'd forgotten how hard (emotionally) it was. These kids need all the support they can get.