Apparently someone in NY Times read my blog post and has now reported on the point I made two days ago—about the audacity of throwing a billing dollars out to save an old stone building while so many in need go hungry, under-represented and with few opportunities to change their condition.
But it won’t matter. Dying kids don’t make the press unless they are white and from a prominent family.
It’s nice enough to sit outside and have coffee in the mornings, so that is cool. I was able to sit out last night and have a smoke and a short whiskey. Made a terrific penne from leftovers. Soaked the penne in bone broth and vegetable stock and then simmered it on low. Added some capers and a few spices, left over chicken thigh-meat and a few shrimp. Delicious. Also a slice from the lovely boule Cassandra brought me from a local artisan bakery. So outside with a nice comfort dish & crisp white wine followed by cigar and whiskey. Nothing wrong with that.
Make some good progress yesterday at work in-between meetings. I’ve had to roll my sleeves up this past couple of weeks because so many on our team simply have not done what we need to be doing and they don’t know how to proceed without a lot of guidance. We have a very inexperienced team for what we are trying to pull off and so the education process must continue. It will be a long and difficult year, but I like the CCF mentality—the work will be there tomorrow. The culture there is of maintaining a semblance of life/work balance and that is what I was looking for with this change. So far so good. Busy but acceptably so. And challenges abound—which is also important to me.
I’ve picked back up on reading the RBG book I started just before the move and chaos. It’s nice; most of the words from RBG herself in different speeches and different contexts. Here is a short passage that I found endearing.
If I could choose the talent I would most like to have, it would be a glorious voice. I would be a great diva, perhaps Renata Tebaldi or Beverly Sills or, in the mezzo range, Marilyn Horne. But my grade school teacher, with brutal honesty, rated me a sparrow, not a robin. I was told to mouth the words, never to sing them. Even so, I grew up with a passion for opera, though I sing only in the shower, and in my dreams.
I found an old picture of me and Mandela—from when she was a pup. She had very little grey on her snout, compared to her last years. I’m starting to figure out a path forward without that little dog. Seems okay to think about that now.
The Martini Tales 