The cake for Us

Cake

Not a cake

This was a cake for a good-bye party for a volunteer leaving the lab.  It was very popular.  If you are a in a bio lab doing protein work, it might very well make you giddy:  "Oh look at that Western Blotter!  Ooh look at the blot...It even has Novex marker run on it!  I just want to turn those knobs!"  If you are not nerdy enough, you might just say "are those knobs? They look like noses."  but as I said, it was the right crowd, and they all really liked it.
Amazing how hard it is to make even a simple cake, especially when you are out of practice.  Just getting together all the supplies, getting back into the groove of icing smoothly and not picking up crumbs.  Actually white frosting (or very light) is the worst - shows crumbs, need a fairly thick coating.  This took me about 4.5 hours start to finish (not totally occupied in the cake the whole time, but maybe 75%).  Also, the decorator's dilema: butter-cream does not like humidity.
I do love making them, though.

Where have all the comics gone?

I intended to share my recurring nightmare, but I wanted to show, or at least link to, a great Sylvia cartoon.  But I can't find any Sylvia archives before 2001.  Then I thought about a Cathy I wanted to link to for another post idea - same deal, no archives before 2001, and even those are hard to get to.  And neither has any kind of subject search capabilities like the Dilbert site.  And remember the post a little while back where I had to tell you to link to amazon to get a Life in Hell strip?Has every cartoon publisher become Web copyright wacko, and taken all free copies off any archive sites?  I'm very upset about this.  In conversations with my kids,  I'm always referring to some strip.  And the best part is that, since the kids have read all my cartoon collections until the books are falling apart, they know which strip I'm thinking of before I even quote it.  That is supercool.

So what should I do now?  Scan the cartoon strip?  That would be copyright infringement, except that I'm not writing this for profit.

http://sluggy.com/images/comics/970825a.gif

In the mean time, anyone who hasn't heard of Sluggy Freelance, check it out.  I actually haven't read it steadily in years.  But I read it daily from about '98 - '01.  Make your way past the first couple boring weeks and it moves quickly to hysterical.

Not a smiley day

I am usually a smiley person.  Not bubbly, but smiley.  I would say the majority of employees, at the fairly large institution where I work, know me and will give me some friendly recognition when I pass.  Part of this, I'm sure is because of my somewhat unconventional garb, and because I've been here over a decade now, but I think a lot of it is because I usually give everyone a smile, and often a greeting.  I don't do it for any ulterior reason, it's just who I am.  But it's a quality I am pleased with. The 1st century scholar Shammai taught the virtue to "greet everyone with a pleasant face."  Conversely, we learn elsewhere that we should not be overly friendly or chatty to the point of immodesty.  So...

I just heard an article on the radio with Jane Hyun, author of "Breaking the Bamboo Ceiling.
http://www.amazon.com/Breaking-Bamboo-Ceiling-Career-Strategies/dp/0060731192
One of the things she spoke about was the norm in many Asian cultures to  keep a blank face.  To walk around in public with a smile on your face is unusual; it is not percieved as friendly, but rather crazy.  I have heard this about Northern European cultures as well.  I don't know about any place else.  There used to be an upper level manager here that would go into "super smiley" mode when he passed someone.  "HelLO There! How are YOU?!"   I'm sure he learned to do this at some management seminar.  He seemed like a nice guy, but the sudden change of face, like a mask coming over him, was creepy, very ingenuous.

Years ago, a total  stranger passing me said "Hey, why don't you smile?"  I'm not sure what I replied at the time, but I thought he was a complete jerk.  I thought later that I should have lectured him that if he wanted to ask for a smile *from* me, the way to do that is to give a smile *to* me, and then I may respond to this request or ignore it.  Like if you drop in on a friend's house, and you want to taste some food you see, you don't say "Hey, gimme some of that."  You may say "Oh, that looks (smells) delicious."  This gives the friend the polite options of fulfilling the request  with "Oh, please sit down and have a taste," or instead rejecting it with "thank you," and then moving on to other topics.  Plus you just shouldn't accost strangers! Okay that was a tangent on manners.

 On the other hand, a really nice memory was the time I was walking towards a guy on the corner, in a crazy advertizing get up, who had such a pleasent friendly expression on his face, that I couldn't help smiling extra wide.  "You have a beautiful smile this morning" he said.  "I was about to say the exact same thing to you," I answered truthfully.

Being regularly smiley has several possible downsides.  One is people assume you are happy.  Maybe that doesn't seem like a downside.  Well it is.  Another thing, is I feel extra rude if I do not smile some days.  Yesterday was a bad day, there was a terrible tragedy in my extended community, and I could not shake it out of my mind.  I felt scared and angry and horrible.  And I couldn't smile at the other people in the lab, the custodian who is always so friendly, the delivery man, the cashier in the supermarket.  I felt that they thought I was being downright nasty.
So...
I going to Harry Potter tonight, I hope.  Then maybe I will come into work smiley again.

My Discovery of the Summer...

...is that I do not like being a supervisor.  I think that is the major thing I am learning in the lab this summer.  I can't get anything done because people are forever coming over to me - which is what they are supposed to do, but it is still hard on me.  Several of these people have never worked in a lab before, and unless I give them a specific job to do, they just have to sit around.  Another person is a grad student, who, I'm sure, resents that I have been asked to watch over her.  Plus I'm one of the only two people in the lab who has the authority to order supplies through the new (I hate it!) web-based ordering system, so I have to stop what I'm doing every few minutes to order something.  So I'm getting almost nothing done on my own.  These underlings better have some results for me by the end of the summer!  Wouldn't you love to have me as a supervisor?
P.S. I tried to find a link to the "Life in Hell" strip about the 9 types of bosses, but couldn't find it - go do it on your own, that is a strong suggestion from this supervisor.
http://www.amazon.com/Work-Hell-Matt-Groening/dp/0394748646
Click to open the book, then search for:  bosses.

True wealth? The depressing post.

Until now, I really did try to post upbeat essays, because depressing ones are generally not interesting - just whiny.  But I really want to put this down.  And what I say is NOT meant as a stab at anyone.  I know a lot of people genuinely want to help, and a few people have really put out effort.  I appreciate your kindness, and it helps, but the situation doesn't change.  And if you are trying to hold on to a recent high (you know who you are), this is not the time to read this post.  I am going through a bad time.  There's a lot, A LOT of outside stimuli aggravating a existing depression.  And it is really affecting ability to act amiable.  More to the point - I'm acting like a jerk.  Well, maybe I'm being a bit hard on myself; outside of my family, I haven't actually been mean or even particularly rude - but self-absorbed all the time. 
In the past couple week I've gone to a wedding and a birthday bash.  I just couldn't get happy.  I pretended, but not with a whole lot of enthusiasm, and I actually started crying for myself at each.  Pathetic.  I cry at everything now, always obsessed with my continual pity-parties. 
In the past couple months I had an epiphany.  I was always thinking, "I'm smart.  If I believed what other people say, I'm damn smart.  So why don't I have the good life?  I deserve it!"  then I realized - I don't deserve anything for being smart.  If I am smart, that was a gift I was given.  I may have an obligation from the Giver to use this tool for all the best that I can. But receipt of one gift does not equal entitlement to another gift. (I did think about that episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm, about the shirt that is "a problem, not a gift" http://www.watch-crub-your-enthusiasm-online.com/Watch_Curb_Your_Enthusiasm_Online_Season_3_Episode_1_Chets_Shirt.html but I don't want to go there right now).  I don't know if that helped me cope at all, but at least it's one less angle to complain about.
I was trying to think of a good story to go with this - but I can't.  Or rather, all the stories I think of show why I am so pathetic.  Think of the hundreds of books, movies, folk tales, bumper stickers, etc, that explain that life's worth is measured in love, family, good friends, health.  I'm almost bankrupt.  If my funeral were tomorrow, I don't think more than 20 people would show up.  If I were never born, I guess a lot of people might have been somehow worse off, but I'm fairly certain there would be no large, or even moderate, or even small scale change in any of the cities where I lived (as if I were George Bailey).  And on the balance, it's seem quite possible that the world would have been better off without me, because when I am bad, I am horrid.
That's all.  Sorry for being whiny.

The Crunchy Life

Yesterday the family went out to pick blueberries.  The kids all got tired of this way way before I did.  They are so jaded.  Or maybe I expect too much.  But only the oldest even finished picking a pint.  I picked about 2 1/2 pints before I felt guilty for making the family wait around for me (plus, the cost was $4.00/pint, outrageous!), so I stopped there.  I have joked that I should hire myself out as a farm laborer, although I'm sure I couldn't really hack it.
I just read Wendy McClure's "Wilder Life", an autobiographical search for the essence of "Little House on the Prairie".  It was a gift from someone who thinks I'm "really really into" Little House as is Ms. McClure.  But whereas the "Wilder Life" is about the author's obsession with all things "Laura Ingalls Wilder", I found as I read the book that I am not interested in learning every nuance of LOHP or Laura Wilder.  (I found the section about the "end of days" crowd interesting, but I don't fit in that camp either.)  I am just crunchy at heart, no way around it. I truly get a  lot of pleasure from hanging the laundry out to dry instead of throwing it in the dryer.  I like making my own bread, my own yoghurt, granola, pickles, etc.  I like to knit and crochet (with yarns from cottage industry suppliers, when I can get it) and sew, I like making our own eco-sacs.  I envy my friend who lives in an "earth house".   I love shopping the farmers markets for local produce.  I wish I had more than 4'x4' to garden in the back yard. Etc.  I get tremendous satisfaction from making my life "greener".
My man does not seem to feel the same, even though when we first met he had to push me (gently) to drive out to the recycling center.  He was all excited about trying worm composting, but it seems that he really liked it mostly as a science experiment for the kids - when the worms died, he just gave up; but I really want to compost again.  He thinks the laundry hanging on the line is tacky.  He thinks I just want to use fans instead of air-conditioner, use less water when we wash the dishes because I'm cheap.  I am cheap, but there is so much more to this desire to return to natural and and stop mucking up the world.  Obviously, you either "get it" or you don't.   For me, unlike my man, it feels a big pain to not buy products from slave labor, or tested on animals, to go vegetarian.  He does not appear to view it as a hardship.  I don't "get it".
Well, this evening we have blueberry crumble, which took half of my blueberry stash.  I'll just have to watch for the local berries to make it into the markets, buy up a bunch to freeze.  I do love summer.  To those of you are fellow crunchy types, enjoy the summer!  And to those who are not, enjoy the summer!

Surprise movie joys

http://www.super8-movie.com/

Last night I really wanted to go out for the evening.  My movie buddy and I didn't know of anything we wanted to see, so we showed up at the cinemaplex and bought tickets to see X-men.  Luckily, a guiding angel pushed me to look at what was playing in the theater across the hall - "Super 8".  Never heard of it.  "Hey, this is by Speilberg, let's look in, I think it only started 10min ago."  Thank you, guiding angel.
It seems some of the best movie experiences I have had, have come across in an accidental way.  Years ago, my husband and I were out of state for a wedding, our rental car battery died, and we missed our flight.  After that yucko morning, everything else went right - a friend begged us to stay at her house because her babysitter for the evening canceled, and we spent the afternoon at a great restaurant and then showed up at a theater and saw "Forest Gump" - not my favorite film every, but quite enjoyable, and fit the day perfectly.  Another time we went to some movie we hated, went down the hall, and found "Men in Black II" just starting - a great date movie, I think. so I now think it normal and wise to wander from theater to theater in cinemaplexes to find the right movie. If you have to put up with a plex anyway (I only know of one "single-cinema" within a 30min drive of our home), this seems like the right way to get the most bang for your movie bucks.  The drawback is that there are lots of movie that I thought had huge logic gaps until someone explained that I missed some critical info by coming in 10min late.
I'm sure this is true of "Super 8" - there must be some more explanation given for why the whole plot didn't resolve years before the events of the movie, and what the characters have been doing for the past 20 years, etc.  But it really just didn't matter too much.  This movie was outrageously fun - for goodness sake, you got 80's retro, reasonably appealing  kid actors, military conspiracy, aliens and zombies! all in one film. Both me and movie buddy had a great time, and were singing along with "My Sharona" at the end (well, we went back and forth between "My Sharona" and "My Bologna", but the point is we were having great fun.
Final Review: pick a friend with whom you can enjoy a stupid movie, don't look nuance, and let yourself be tickled pink.