The Hillbilly Chronicles

I sometimes open my eyes to what’s going on around me and realize that most normal people in my demographic do not live the way I do.  For example, most post-graduate-educated, professional people have never stapled an orange electrical cord to their roof to use as a permanent power source for something other than Christmas lights, nor have they ever considered using a deer skull as decoration in the kitchen.

Most normal people in my demographic don’t have three different colored walls in the dining room (one of the colors being “primer”) nor do they deal with pestilent, plant-destroying gophers by whipping out the .22 and sniping at them from inside the living room.

Most normal people in my demographic have never picked up a severed deer leg, covered in slobber and trailing tendons and bits of skin, with their bare hands and taken it out of the house and back outside where it belongs.

So the other day, when I was doing just that, I thought – “Gee, I’ll bet there isn’t anyone in the greater Phoenix area doing this right now!”

It was actually computer-fixing day or, more accurately, day for circumventing Steve (“Darth”) Jobs’ evil iPod/iTunes code in order to transfer music that we paid for from one computer to another – both of which we own -so that my husband can update his iPod with his laptop instead of the PC (which now has Linux Ubuntu on it and won’t talk to his iPod Touch even if he asks nicely).

Because I’m not a genius programmer/14-year old boy/geek, any involved task like this requires hours perusing geek and hacker forums for the best solution, slowly implementing that solution and, inevitably, having to go back to step 1 of a 37-step process because I right-clicked in the wrong place or because I’m using the wrong instructions for my particular version of software.

So I was deep into this arduous process the other day when one of the dogs snuck into the study and dropped a slimy, hard, furry thing onto my bare foot.

“AAAAAAAAAHHHH!!”  I shrieked “What the hell is that?”  I knew what it was, of course, but I was at a point in my computer surgery that required a scream anyway so I figured I’d kill two birds with one stone.  So to speak.

None of the dogs speak English, but all four of them slunk out of the study at my first 400-decibel syllable.

“Get BACK here and pick this damn thing up!”  I hollered at the long-gone dogs.  I often forget they don’t speak English – I spend way too much time alone.

I looked down and there it was, the leg that was once attached to the deer my husband killed on our recent hunt, looking more like evidence from a wilderness homicide scene than a recently-abandoned dog treat.

OK, I just need to get this out here now because I know at least two of the four people who read this blog are simultaneously throwing up in their mouths and composing furious letters to WordPress to kick me off the site and have me tried for war crimes (hopefully in New York City and not some scary military court):

We hunt.  When we are successful, we clean and butcher the deer, bring home the meat for the freezer and the legs for the dogs.  The deer is already dead so he’s not feeling anything, and the dogs used to be wolves so once a year they get to pretend they are still top predator in the land.  Without all that fending for their lives and sleeping on the ground crap.

When Kel first tossed the legs in the backyard (still covered in fur and possessing of their hooves – makes for interesting doggie-doo clean-up), Kira and Toro went right to work – snagging a leg each and quickly going to their preferred deer-eating spots in the yard (Kira in the middle of the patio and Toro in the shed).   Zzini wasn’t quite sure what to do with hers, but once she figured out what it was, she began delicately nibbling at the knee end.  O-Ren gave hers a sniff and then wouldn’t have anything to do with it – running to stand behind me for protection from this foreign, wild-smelling object.  Kira quickly retrieved it so she could lie on it while she chewed on hers.

For over an hour they gnawed happily, leaving me some quiet time to fight with the computers.  At one point I had to go check the laundry in the shed and (JUST DON’T READ ANY FURTHER IF YOU ARE ALREADY GROSSED OUT – I’M WARNING YOU) saw Toro sitting by the washer with his leg.  He had it held firmly in his paws, hoof down, and he was enthusiastically chewing on the achilles tendon.   I couldn’t help but notice that every time he got a good grip on the thick muscle and pulled, the hoof flexed.  I stood there, transfixed by this seriously disgusting, but nonetheless hilarious and cringe-worthy scene – Sam Raimi ain’t got nothin’ on my dogs as far as dark humor goes.   Oblivious to the reanimation he was performing on his deer leg, Toro thumped his tail at me and grinned as much as he could being both a dog and having a leg in his mouth.

I went to the study and returned to cyberspace and my fledgling attempts at very basic computer programming.   A short while afterward Toro slunk in and deposited his leg on my foot.  I’m sure he was just trying to share and probably didn’t deserve all the screeching I rewarded him with.  After flinging the soggy thing back outside and making sure the screen door was securely shut this time, I thoroughly scrubbed my hands and went back to work.  I realized that this could be the first time in history that a brand-new computer operating system and a severed and gnawed upon deer leg were in such close proximity to each other.   That’s gotta be worthy of some note – but then again, that’s just how we roll around here.

Yee-haw!

 

Dear Defilers of the Wilderness, Strewers of TP and Public Poopers:

Hope this finds you well.

I felt compelled to write you a letter after returning from my six-day foray into the Aravaipa wilderness searching for the wily Coues White-Tail deer (who remained wily, for the record).  You were there as well, although we never formally met. 

I appreciate that the spot my husband’s family has been hunting in for well over 30 years could only remain a secret for so long and that more and more hunters are bound to discover that their ATVs actually can make it up the meanest road in southern Arizona (albeit in over 3 hours at an average speed of 5 mph in 4wd low the entire time).  

I understand that not all of the newcomers (I’ve been hunting in there for a decade now so I think I get to use that word) will be the sophisticated and righteous hunters we like to think we are.  After all, I am pretty sure ours was the only camp featuring 15-year old Macallan scotch;  a gallon zip-top baggie full of top-notch cigars for the guys; and enough tactical outerwear, backpacks, Camelbacks and rifle acoutrement to outfit a small counter-insurgency force.  Not to mention gourmet dinners that would do well on Iron Chef - (my husband and one of the other guys were having a who-can-cook-better-in-camp contest – despite burning approximately 35,000 calories a day, I still think I gained weight).

No, I cannot blame others (such as yourselves) for wanting to play Jeremiah Johnson in the wilds of Arizona; feeling exceptionally manly as you gaze intently across a ridge, grizzled but chiseled jaw set, your steely-blue eyes fixed on the far horizon – searching for the tell-tale flash of antler in the sun, or the twitch of an ear connected to a deer bedded down under a mesquite. 

To be honest, I’ve felt rather manly myself after lugging my backpack and rifle through miles of those rocky canyons and up cactus-filled draws for days on end with nothing but wet wipes and paper towels for hygiene products.   No wonder I’m the only chick who ever goes up there . . .

So it’s not the gradual encroachment of “the rest of the world” that begat this letter.  It is rather, YOUR unabashedly horrifying toilet habits.

Not far from where your camp was located (I strongly believe it was your camp) and right up the road from our camp, a small mesquite tree was festooned with merry streamers of white toilet paper – shockingly bright in this mostly-dust-colored place.  After a quick glance at what was piled under the toilet paper, we realized you were using this area as a latrine, concentrating all the human mess in one location.  I’ll be surprised if that tree is alive next year. 

“Going” in the wild is a fact of life if you’re going to spend more than 12 hours in any spot.  Most people who were raised by other human beings (as oppposed to wolves) prefer not to leave their “business” out for everyone to inspect and critique.  Most people also recognize that at least a half-hearted effort to bury (or burn in the campfire when no one is looking) the toilet paper used in the completion of the “business” is warranted when you’re out in the outdoors.  Moreover, most seasoned campers/hunters/outdoorspeople try not to conduct “business” within 50 feet of camp, for obvious reasons that I’ll let you google since I’m already not comfortable with the scatalogical detail I’m including here. 

However you guys – you guys were different.  Not only did we have to walk by your “business” (and, judging by the quantity – which was easily discernable from the road – either several “business” men were involved in its creation or one of you had one helluva meal before coming in to camp) almost every day on our way out to the field, we kept running into additional piles of poop and paper – all over the damn wilderness! 

Come on, guys, did you not bring a shovel?  Could you not even use the heel of your boot to dig a little hole?  Pile some rocks on top?  We hiked at least 4-5 miles a day, usually setting out in different directions from our camp and we came across your piles everywhere – like Easter Eggs from hell – all of them signaled by strips and streamers of way too much toilet paper.  Here’s where that great wilderness equalizer the quad, really made its presence felt – the piles were never far from quad tracks.  

And not only that, but being experienced hunters (we assumed you weren’t newbies considering the difficulty of the road coming in and the extent of your camp), did you ever stop to think that the giant juniper on the east side of that easternmost hill that looks over the wider canyon (looking north from the windmill – you know which one I’m talking about) would be the perfect place to sit and rest, or maybe get out the binos and glass for deer?  Oh nooooooo, you said, that looks like a great spot to leave a huge pile of steaming mess and a wad of toilet paper on top like some obscene puff of whipped cream!

Apparently no one told you that prickly pear stands are for potties – big juniper and mesquite trees are for sitting under.

Suffice to say that there were several conversations in our camp as to your upbringing (were you raised by hyenas?), your hunting party (is it maybe just one big, mean guy and everyone else is too scared to say anything since he has a rifle?), and your general hygiene (my question, to which one of the other guys responded with a scoff – “they’re men.”).  Most of the discussions ended with my father-in-law exclaiming “God Almighty!” in his most disgusted voice.

(NOTE:  I feel compelled to add here that our group is absolutely compulsive about picking up our own trash as well as the trash of others – and I do NOT appreciate having to add faded, crushed Budweiser cans to my already-heavy backpack)

So I’ll close here – not having reached any satisfying conclusion or resolution.  After we had hiked back down to our truck and started the arduous drive home, I spied one last pile with the now-familiar fluttering strips of toilet paper right on the side of the “road” like a parting gift.  I sighed and began the rough draft of this letter. 

You may be the nicest group of guys on the planet, but I sincerely hope we never draw the same deer tags again.  Unless, of course, you buy a shovel.

 

Delia’s Totally Awesome Green Chile Deer Jerky: More addictive than crack but less likely to get you arrested.

For the last few years, I’ve made up a big batch of venison jerky for our annual deer hunt (Arizona Coues Whitetail, not Bambi, Rudolph or any of the non-predator cast from The Lion King), and as I’ve fine-tuned the recipe each time, I think I’ve finally created a jerky recipe worth sharing with the world.  Or at least with the 4 people who consistently read my blog.

A little background first.  This is a hunting family, so I’ve always made jerky with deer or elk, trimming and grinding the meat myself.  Several years ago, my husband got me a Jerky Gun for Christmas (same size and general appearance as a plastic caulking gun) and it revolutionized my jerky efforts.  If you are serious about your jerky (or just a hillbilly gear-freak with a freezer full of deer steak that your family refuses to eat), you GOTTA get yourself one of these jobbies.

You will also need a dehydrator – you can use your oven, but the dehydrator is much more efficient and produces a better jerky.

Happy little jerky strips and green chile

In terms of ingredients, I have a hard-core addiction to the unbelievably fabulous green chile carne seca sold at the Chevron Station outside of Alcalde (just north of Espanola) in New Mexico so I made my first batch using the ingredient list from their label.  I don’t think that’s stealing. . . .  besides, no matter how good mine is, it will never approximate their dried meat ambrosia!  Anyway, I’ve tweaked my recipe enough now that I think it’s sufficiently different enough to avoid legal action.

The jerky recipes in the dehydrator book (and on most jerky-making websites) call for either jerky cure (which you buy from the dehydrator people or at some place like Cabela’s) or a fair amount of sodium nitrite (which is also in the pre-made cure).  The cure or nitrite is to help prevent the growth of bacteria during the initial drying period.  Remember, you’re putting strips of raw meat into a warm (160 degree) environment for 4-6 hours – the perfect breeding ground for evil food demons if you aren’t careful.  The problem is that sodium nitrite is really rough on your innards, and can give some people very painful heartburn for hours after ingesting.  I had a problem with GERD when I first started making jerky and I can tell you that nitrites made me feel like I’d swallowed half a can of Drano.  I did some research and found out that – believe it or not – raisins added to jerky can inhibit microbial growth.  This was from real sources like smart people at universities, food science people, and the raisin people (who have needed a PR boost ever since the damn fruit roll-up people took over the “healthy” snack market with their lurid sheets of sugary jello paste bereft of any actual fruit).

I first started using raisins two years ago and that’s when I really got people hooked – even my father-in-law, who has a pretty high standard for vital hunting provisions like jerky.  My combination of herbs and spices, green chile and raisins seems to satisfy some primal yearning in the most urban sophisticate.  Not that I know any of those.

Since then, I’ve managed to turn at least a dozen normally respectable people into complete jerky addicts.  Because they’re all a bunch of cheap bastards and always get their jerky for free, I don’t think I’m endangering my fledgling jerky-pushing syndicate by releasing the magical formula

OK, enough blabbing, here’s the first public appearance of Delia’s Totally Awesome Green Chile Deer Jerky.  You can thank me later.

• 8-9 pounds carefully-trimmed, ultra-lean game meat that has been frozen for at least 60 days* (I forgot to mention this recipe is for a shit-load of jerky, just do the math and reduce proportions to whatever amount of meat you have)
• Kosher or any non-iodized salt (I prefer coarse or Kosher salt, but a finer grind is ok)
• 12-14 dry ounces of raisins, soaked in 2/3 cup of hot water, drained and pureed to a paste
• 8 tsp garlic powder
• 4 tsp each: finely ground black pepper; onion powder; mexican whole oregano
• 1 tsp ground red chile (I used hot, but medium would be fine as well)
• 1/2 to 1 cup hot New Mexico Green Chile (you can use Hatch if you must, but I much prefer the hotter, and far superior Espanola Improved), roasted, peeled/seeded and chopped ultra-fine

*Game should be frozen for at least 60 days before turning into jerky so that any parasites or other unwelcome beasties will be killed off.  And don’t make that face at me – all animals, you included, have some type of internal or external hitchhikers – just grow up and deal with it.

Make sure you trim every bit of fat and connective tissue from the meat.  Fat will go rancid and the other stuff is just gross – I don’t care if it’s going to get ground up – get rid of it.  I used a couple of roasts, some steaks, backstraps, and a loin – about 12-15 pounds untrimmed.  There was some freezer burn and questionable areas so I just cut those completely out to be safe.  Err on the side of extreme caution when you’re planning on feeding people dried raw meat. . .

Run the meat through the coarse attachment of your grinder (I used my trusty 15-year old KitchenAid standing mixer with a grinder attachment – damn thing has paid for itself five times over), mixing up different cuts as much as possible.  After you’ve ground all your meat, mix in (yes, with your clean, bare hands you sissy) the salt.  I added 4 teaspoons to my 8-9 pounds of ground meat, but probably could have doubled that.  I think a safe estimate is 1/2 to 1 tsp per pound.  I thoroughly mixed the salt in and then left the meat, covered, in the fridge overnight to cure.  This may be unnecessary, but I felt it would give the meat a chance to rest and the salt to dissolve.  When I took the meat out I ran it through the grinder on coarse one more time.

Blend your dry spices.  Sprinkle over the pile of meat and work in.  Add the raisin paste and the finely-chopped green chile.  Mush the whole pile around a bit and then run through the grinder using the fine attachment this time.  This helps incorporate all the seasonings equally and just to be safe, I made sure I was taking lumps of ground meat from different parts of the bowl and mushing them into the grinder together.

Jerky Gun and Gigantic Pile of Raw Meat

I like a fairly seasoned jerky, this is really a personal choice, so you’ll have to experiment.  If you aren’t sure, mix half of the seasoning ingredients into the meat thoroughly and make a little patty to cook up and taste.  You can always increase salt and seasonings, but you can’t take them away (unless you have more meat to grind up) so be conservative if you are at all concerned about it being too spicy.  But it’s jerky, for Gods’ sake – let it have some personality!

About the raisins – all the smart jerky-science guys agreed that a jerky mix of 10% raisins was both effective at inhibiting bacteria growth and tasted best.  Since I had about 8-9 pounds of meat, I used about 13 – 14 ounces of raisins.  Use more if you want sweeter jerky.

Make sure you taste your green chile before adding it.  I had some fairly hot chile, but still ended up increasing the total amount to about a cup and a half.  Also, when it’s ground in with the meat, you kind of lose it visually.  I added the last half cup or so after I’d finished grinding so there were some visible pieces of chile and seeds – just gives the jerky a better look.  You can see some seeds and bits of chile in the photo above.

When you have the right balance of seasonings, it’s ready to dry.  It will take at least 4 hours (and up to 12, depending on the thickness of your strips and the humidity) so plan accordingly.  It won’t hurt to sit another night in the fridge if you don’t have time to babysit it.  You don’t want it to dry too much or it will turn into black little jerky crackers, so make sure you’ll be around when it’s done.  Load up your jerky gun and fire away.  If you’re making patties or strips by hand, go for uniformly thick pieces – about 1/8 of an inch and no more than 1/4 inch.  The jerky must be dried at a temp of no less than 160 degrees – but much hotter than that and you’ll be baking it. Again, a jerky gun and dehydrator really takes all the guesswork out of all this crap.

When it’s done (pliable, but not mushy), put it into ziplock baggies and keep out of reach of any felines or canines in the house.  It doesn’t need to be refrigerated unless you aren’t going to eat it for a while (like more than a couple of weeks).   But leaving it that long would just be stupid.  Save yourself from ignominy and embarrassment and just dive right in.

Toro is always willing to help clean stray bits of meat off the floor. . .

 

 

 

Surfing in a Bucket

I have a really bad habit of scrolling through Google News for great lengths of time when I’m either bored or can’t think of anything to write (or am trying to ignore work that needs to get done).  It’s as if my internet world is limited to that carefully-divided page of news tidbits and celebrity gossip and I can’t move out of it except to follow links to a particulary news agency’s website. 

I hate when I do that.

Just this second, I was doing it again – scrolling all the way down to the bottom and then slowly back up again to see if the headline for Obama’s declaration of a flu emergency had changed in the 4 seconds it was off screen. 

I could even hear my inner voice justifying my mindless trolling because I’m coming off a horrible viral infection that knocked me flat for a week.  Recuperating from being sick = permission to bore myself to death.

For whatever reason, I never think to truly “surf” the internet, but intentionally limit myself  to the Google news page.  I think it goes along with my concern that I might be caught doing something frivolous.  By whom, I’m not sure.  I’m 42, for gods’ sake!  I can do whatever the hell I want with my computer time!  Dammit!

That’s it, I’m closing this tiny excuse for a post and I’m going to make up some Google search for something totally silly.

 

Just put me in charge already

WHEREAS the Undersigned has worked for THE MAN in various capacities since time immemorial and is intimately familiar with the inner workings of governmental bureaucracies; and

WHEREAS during that time THE MAN has not improved its ability to carefully and wisely spend or save money; and

WHEREAS it is time a small amount of common sense force its way into the astoundingly inefficient and blatantly consumptive morass THE MAN has become, the Undersigned shall heretofore be made Supreme Dictator and President-for-Life of the managerial aspects of all governmental agencies. 

(Note that Undersigned has no knowledge of, nor interest in, such flim flam as foreign policy, domestic issues, military concerns, what really goes on in the Treasury, where Congress is located, or how to run a country and, therefore, will not be responsible for such minor details.)

IT IS HEREBY ORDERED THAT THE FOLLOWING POLICIES TAKE EFFECT IMMEDIATELY:

1.  OFFICE KITCHENS: Every governmental office will be supplied with an employee kitchen containing at least one of the following:

- Refrigerator that automatically disposes of all plastic containers, paper bags, to-go boxes, opened soda cans, tiny packets of soy sauce/parmesan cheese/crushed red peppers/salt/pepper, half-eaten sandwiches and salad dressings with expiration dates that begin with “19–” each and every Friday.  Justification:  Since Barbara always ends up cleaning out the fridge every three months, she invariably spends at least half a day doing the job – and the other half complaining to everyone else what slobs “some of the other people in this office” are.  This will save one 8-hour work day at Barbara’s salary or, approximately $1600 per office per fiscal quarter.

- Filtered Water Dispenser.   City governments that previously removed water coolers from employee kitchens in order to force employees to drink city water, in a misguided attempt to convince tourists that the city is so great its water tastes just like bottled water, must replace them immediately.  Because, face it, city water tastes like city water and we all want our mineralized and reverse osmosized water, not your chlorinated, muddy crap.  Justification:  This will eliminate approximately 1 billion empty water bottles from local landfills in addition to improving employee health since they will drink more water if it doesn’t taste like someone has already consumed it.

- Garbage Disposal.  Signs telling people 1. “your mother doesn’t work here” and/or 2. “please do not put food down the sink” are amusing to everyone except the person who printed them up and are also completely invisible to most men.   Justification:  This will save at least $1350 yearly per office as it will no longer be necessary to have Maintenance take the sink apart every time Ken mashes what’s left of his Ramen noodles through the strainer with a plastic spoon.

2.  BATHROOMS:  All governmental office bathrooms will be equipped with the following:

- Very loud and powerful fan to cover up otherwise embarrassing noises and smells that may emanate from said bathroom while an employee is occupied within.  Justification:  This will save both money and increase productivity since Robert will no longer feel it necessary to leave the building so he can use the public toilet in the convenience store next door merely because it possesses a single-seater with a loud fan.

- Extra powerful flushing toilets (Lowe’s has one that allegedly will flush a bucket of golf balls.  That would do).  Justification:  Should be obvious, but see below.

- Heavy duty toilet plunger and toilet brush.  Justification:  If the office is not possessed of a powerful-enough flushing mechanism in the toilets, many calls to Maintenance for “clog” removal must be made.  A plunger will help eliminate most of these Maintenance costs.  More importantly, however, it will reduce lost employee time that occurs when either of two things happens: employees with gastric distress issues are forced to hide in the bathroom until everyone has gone home, or the toilet becomes so plugged up it floods the entire building and everyone has to leave so the Haz-Mat team can come in to clean up.   The toilet brush assists in situations when a dozen or so coutesy flushes still haven’t done the trick, thus forcing the trapped employee to sneak out of the bathroom via the ductwork in the  ceiling in order to avoid the embarrassment of being known as the person who left the bathroom “dirty.”

- Small cabinet containing the following:  extra-strength air freshener, extra toilet paper, small first aid kit, box of safety pins, small box of feminine necessities to be replenished as needed by users of said box of necessities.  Justification:  A supply of inexpensive items that can reduce the number of times employees need to leave the office due to a missing button, cut finger or lack of preparation for regularly occurring “events” can greatly increase productivity and reduce the likelihood that the employee who leaves doesn’t return until the next day.

3.  IN THE OFFICE:

- Computers –  In General:  Everyone employed by any government agency shall be fluent in the office email, word processing and any other computer program they use regularly as part of their job.  Regardless of the attempts of many upper-level management personnel to deny/forbid/ignore their existence, computers are here now and they aren’t going away so figure out how to attach a file to your own damn email and leave the receptionist alone. 

Government offices will immediately discontinue the practice of purchasing expensive, counter-intuitive and cumbersome computer programs without first testing the program out on the employees who will actually be using said program.  It is assumed that the employees using the program do not include employees with titles that begin with “Senior,” “Head,” “Chief,” or the like.  As their level of responsibility requires them to mindlessly agree with any proposal the person above them supports,  input from that class of employee is useless and should be avoided at all costs.

Effective immediately:  All government offices will remove Windows Vista from all working computers and burn all backup copies and installation disks during a bonfire at the next pot luck.  The entire IT department will be given that day off in appreciation.

Justification:  Implementation of the above three policies will result in approximate savings of $1,000,000,000 per office, per agency per year.

- Computers – Internet/Email:   Employees will be trained in the appropriate use of “Reply to All.”  Setting ones Automatic Vacation Responder to “Reply to All,” thus causing an infinite loop of ”Reply To All” responses to every office-wide email and tying up the entire IT department for half a day will be grounds for public flogging in the conference room. 

Employees are also expected to know what the Internet is and how to locate important and useful things other than their own Face Book page and “cute pictures of kitties,”  using a Google search.

Employees are forbidden from printing out every individual email in any conversational thread.   The following types of emails are also not to be printed out under any circumstances:

• Announcements for any upcoming retirement party, birthday party or baby shower;
• Any email from HR, Admin, or IT that begins with the line “for your information only” or “just a reminder”;
• Notifications about any planned computer updates or outage, electrical outage or plumbing shut-down;
• Results from any of the expensive, self-promoting, inaccurate myriad Employee Satisfaction Surveys that will be run throughout the year;
• Any appointment, date, meeting time or other calendar item (THE MAN spends millions of dollars a year on personal calendars, calendaring programs, and desk and wall calendars for its employees.  It is assumed that appointments, dates, meeting times or other calendar items will be memorialized on one or more of these calendars, thus obviating the need to use an entire sheet of pristine paper upon which to print said calendar item prior to entering said calendar item into or onto an actual calendar); 
• Any email consisting of 2 (two) lines or less;
• Any email printed out for the sole purpose of being read later;
• Any email that contains 35 pages of forwarding addresses.

Employees with a stack of 20 (twenty) or more of these types of emails in their possession will be assigned the job of retrieving recyclable items out of all office garbage cans for the 30 (thirty) days following discovery of the infraction.  Justification:  This will save approximately $23,576.25 in printer paper costs per office, per year.

Employees may use the computers for limited personal things (since it will happen anyway and sometimes THE MAN knows when it’s been beat) but are asked not to forward every single post from “I Can Has Cheezburger” to everyone in the office, and to refrain from stalking ex-girlfriends on the internet while they are at work.

- Other Equipment:  All employees, regardless of job title or station, shall know how to change the toner, replace paper, remove paper jams and operate the copier, printer and fax machine.   They will also know where paper and toner supplies are kept.   It is no longer permissible for upper-level management personnel to stand in front of a copier that is out of paper and scream their secretary’s name until the paper trays are refilled.  Justification:  This practice will result in a savings of approximately 114 man-hours per month – 57 each for the upper-level management personnel and for his/her secretary.  Since it has been obvserved that after screaming for help with the copier, the upper-level management personnel has a tendency to stand motionless in front of the copier while the secretary replaces the paper and clears any jams caused by the upper-level management personnel’s attempts to fix the empty machine by punching all the buttons, it is necessary to double the hours.  This will save approximately $116,280 per office per year.

- Personal Matters – Dress Code:  Due to their confusing, contradictory and conflicting contents, dress codes are hereby abolished.  All employees are expected to wear clothes to work.  Any items that appear to be anything other than clothes (e.g. pajamas) are not to be worn to the office.    Employees are encouraged to look at themselves in the mirror before they leave their homes in the morning and ask themselves if they would wear their current outfit as a guest on “The O’Reilly Factor.”  It is also requested that employees refrain from wearing anything purchased at “Forever 21,” “Charlotte Russe,” or “Hot Topic.”

NOTE:  Supervisors or other employees are specifically protected from Hostile Work Environment claims if their comments to or about another employee consist solely of complaints regarding the other employee’s obviously inappropriate attire.  Photographic evidence may also be collected to support this defense.  Justification:  This practice will save approximately $1,275,546.65 per year.  This amount includes the money and time spent printing hundreds of copies of confusing dress codes and sending out updates every 45 days; the amount of productivity lost by employees gossiping behind closed doors about the offending clothing item(s); the amount of time spent by supervisors meeting behind closed doors and playing “rock, paper, scissors” to determine who will be the one to tell the offender that her caesarian scars are showing;  and the time spent documenting exact conversations with others in anticipation of lengthy and pointless litigation. 

 - Personal Matters – ID Badges:  Employees are limited to 5 (five) pieces of flair on their ID lanyards.  All flair must be non-lethal and securely attached in such a manner as to eliminate accidental discharge of said flair into the shredder, garbage disposal or toilet.  Justification:  Employee injuries and sick days due to back injuries incurred when lanyards are overloaded with flair will be virtually eliminated.  Shredder malfunction as a result of angel pins, pink ribbon tie tacks and clip-on bling will also be greatly reduced.  This will result in a savings of approximately $437 per year.

The above preliminary policies for government offices will result in a nation-wide savings of approximately $723,568,021,401.93 per year.  It is anticipated that the entire National Debt will be cleared up by December 2010 if all policies are immediately implemented and adhered to.  The Undersigned will humbly accept any nomination for Queen of the World subsequent to the occurrence of that event.

IT IS SO ORDERED THIS         13th       Day of     October    ,   20  09.

/S/ Honorable, Poo-bah and Mighty Slasher of The Bureaucracy, Delia.

 

Back to Year One

(sung to “Oh Tannenbaum”) Oh i-iCal, Oh CalenGoooooo, Oh Outloooooooooook - how I will miss theeeeeeee (but not reeeeeeeeeallyyyyyyyyyy).  For I have forsaken theeeeeeeeeeee (at least for the time beeeeeeeeeing), and have returned to my olllllllld flaaaaaaame, Mr. Daaaaaay Ruuuuuuunner. . .  

. . . it sounds better when you have the full German chorus singing backup.

Yeah, after a couple of years diddling around with various digital calendaring systems I’m back to paper.   Back to mechanical pencils and tic-tac-sized erasers that always break in half while you’re trying to erase and negotiate traffic at the same time. 

Back to lugging around a bible-sized refillable calendar that matches my current purse but will almost certainly clash with the next one I buy (a girl can only have so many baby-shit-green purses).

Back to spending hours in Staples every 3 months or so, agonizing over the 453 different calendar options, terrified that I’ll pick yet another one that I hate.

But also back to feeling like I really control my calendar.   And when I say “control,” I mean as in I possess it and hold it in my hand – “control,” as in I exercise complete dominion over my schedule and accomplish everything I set out to do?  Not so much.

Although I always felt terribly important and 21st century when I whipped out my iPod Touch every time I had to check a date with someone, I never could get over the idea that my entry into either iCal or Google calendar was subject to the whims of whatever poltergeists lurk in “teh interwebs.”

And I did lose dates a couple of times – both with iCal and Google.  Now there’s no way to prove that, since the Digital Constitution forbids computers from admitting responsibility for any error and requires blame to be immediately assigned to the closest human, but I KNOW I entered those dates.  And I’m pretty sure I wasn’t drunk when I did it. 

That didn’t happen all that often – although it was always spectacular when it did since my job isn’t one you can call in a temp for – and I always looked and felt like a total ass explaining to the chief clerk why I was presiding in one court when I was also booked for another court at the same time.  If I’ve learned anything in my career it’s that you do NOT piss off the support staff.  They run the damn place and can make your life absolute hell if you start getting too big for your robe.  So when I put a clerk in a position where she had to scramble to find coverage because of my screw-up, I might as well have just told her to take her court and shove it. 

(And the whole syncing issue is another post entirely, suffice to say that if you don’t trust your calendar, you might as well not have one)

So it wasn’t really the missing dates (I SWEAR it wasn’t me – it was the friggin’ computer!) that caused this tectonic shift in my life.  The plain fact is that although I love my MacBook Pro with an unholy passion and have my iPod surgically attached to my wrist – I’m still an old-fashioned girl when it comes to the written word.

Whether it’s reading a book (I don’t care how snuggly the word sounds – I just do not believe you can cuddle up with a good Kindle on a cold, dark night), or scheduling a root canal, I want my words to be on paper.   And I want to be able to hold that paper in my grubby mitts.

Plus I just like writing stuff down.  And you can’t really do that with your iPod.  “Things,” “Evernote” and ”Notes“  just aren’t the same as a blank piece of paper.  Especially since I have crap scattered all across all three apps – never sure where I should put what I’m thinking about at that particular second (they didn’t have a “Toilet” app for shit thoughts. . .).  

As I write this I realize that moving my calendar function away from my iPod means I’m eliminating yet another reason I bought the iPod instead of a cheaper (and universally compatible) MP3 player.  Hmmm. 

Of course my “writing” writing (like this post, which is arguably written communication of some form, regardless of its merit) is all on the computer.   However, I’ve been using a keyboard to try the patience of many an unwitting (and unwilling) reader since I broke out in hives during my first timed test in Miss Johnson’s 9th grade typing class, so that doesn’t really count.

My new, but admittedly archaic, calendar has only been in use for a few days now, but something in my psyche likes having the paper in front of me, with entries written in my messy but familiar block print.   And I’ve timed it perfectly so that I’ll have to start over with a new system in January – even though the one I have now is unnumbered “for your convenience” and I could use it until I run out of pages, I know I’ll get tired of writing months and days and switch to something pre-numbered.  Just ‘cuz it looks cooler.

Even if it doesn’t do all the great things my digital calendar(s) did, my paper calendar has one very important trait that iCal and CalenGoo will NEVER have:  any customization requires a trip to OfficeMax.   Given my weakness for (addiction to) the office-supply store, I think this is going to work out just fine.

 

Delia’s Famous and Completely Underwhelming Chicken Soup for the Soul

We were finally able to sleep without the A/C on last night and the temps are hovering around the low 80s today.  In Arizona, that’s what we get for Fall, so I’m reveling in it.  Cool weather (or, anything below 175 degrees) always makes me want to cook.  It’s not cold enough to trigger my OHBD (Obsessive Holiday Baking Disorder), but it is cool enough to turn my culinary thoughts to warming, comforting dishes like roasts, stews and the obligatory simmering pot of chicken soup.

Ignoring the fact that all I had in the fridge was a third of a bag of baby carrots, a soft and wrinkly white turnip that looked more like the bald pate of some snowbird from Minnesota than a vegetable, and a frozen-solid chicken, I pulled down my trusty James Beard “Theory and Practice of Good Cooking” and located his “Pot au Feu” recipe.

I’m not sure why I even bother with recipes in these situations – I always end up distorting them beyond recognition so that the finished product bears no resemblance to what the original recipe-writer intended.

In this case, not only was I missing important aromatics like celery and leeks, but James calls for a marrow bone to be poached along with everything else.  Marrow Bone??? Pffffhhhht!  Who the hell has marrow bones on hand?  I mean, I’ve got a bag of frozen deer ribs from the Clinton administration, an ancient package of something that says “Game Bones for Stock,”  and a bewildering array of anonymous lumps wrapped in butcher paper that I’m assuming are elk and deer cuts, but nothing even remotely close to a marrow bone.  I don’t think.  Jeez, there could be a dead body under all that stuff and I wouldn’t even know.  Anyway, I thought marrow was in all bones, so I’m not sure why the specific “marrow bone.”  It’s chicken soup, for cryin’ out loud – that implies no cows involved in the making!!!

Of course,  since he was the Dean of American Cooking, James knew what he was talking about.  How many times must I be disappointed by my failures before I stop ignoring his recommendations and go buy some damn marrow bones?

This time, I got the chicken into a large-ish metal bowl and filled the bowl with cold water.  Then I turned the water down to a trickle to keep the water in the bowl moving.  Alton Brown told me (personally, on an episode of Good Eats a few months ago) that if the water is moving, it greatly aids in the defrosting process.

Interesting that I carefully follow the recommendations of some upstart who has a TV program and ignore the advice of the man without whom Alton Brown would just be another frustrated camera-man filming local beauty pageants and soap operas.

James’ Pot au Feu recipe is designed to be served as sort of a composed stew-thing.  After the chicken and veggies get down and intimate in a pot of simmering water, you cut the chicken up and put pieces of chicken and chunks of veggies in bowls, ladling the flavorful and fragrant broth over the top.  Other than serving the chicken on the bone (blick!) I was going to follow the recipe.  Oh, except for the missing celery.  And the missing marrow bone.  And the missing fresh parsley.  And the missing thyme.  And I wasn’t making the cabbage rolls to serve alongside.

But other than that, I was going to follow the recipe exactly.

The poaching went extraordinarily well:  truss chicken, into pot with whole veggies and aromatics (which, in my case was limited to my sad onion stuck with some cloves, 10 baby carrots, one middle-aged potato, the afore-mentioned mushy turnip, and celery seed since I didn’t have anything else), bring to boil and lower to simmer with lid on for 50 minutes.  I took the veggies out after about 30 minutes and kept them warm in a bowl.  After 20 more minutes, the chicken was perfectly cooked.  Despite my inner Chef Boy-Ar-Delia screeching that there wasn’t going to be enough flavor in the broth, I felt triumphant.

I let it cool for a bit before taking the meat off and when I cut the breasts off I was dismayed to see a lump of brownish-red crumbly stuff in the cavity.  Clearly a disintegrated liver or kidney or some other chicken innard.  Shit!  I thought the package said they took all that junk out!  I looked into the pot and saw a layer of brown crap in my otherwise beautiful stock, hovering menacingly just above the bottom of the pot.  Ugh.  Nothing like boiled-to-death chicken kidney to whet your appetite.   A slightly funky smell wafted up from the stock.

I gingerly tasted the stock and was relieved to find that there was no icky parboiled-liver flavor to it.  In fact, there was really not much flavor at all.   The smell said “chicken soup” but the taste said “faintly aromatic hot water.”  The missing marrow bone drifted into my consciousness again.  This time it was laughing at me in smug marrow-boney-ness.

Everything was cooked perfectly, so there was no way I was going to put it all back in the pot and try to leach more flavor out of it.  The bones that I had cleaned of edible meat parts were all infected with mushy, crumbly  chicken guts so they were going straight into the garbage (much to the dismay of my dog-posse, who had been stuck to my side through the whole process, vainly waiting for me to give up and just toss the entire chicken on the floor).

I told myself it would be a nice, light (uhh, TASTELESS?) change from our normally heavily-seasoned and often fat- and cholesterol-laden dinner fare.  I carefully spooned the clear broth out of the pot and pitched the murky brown sludge at the bottom.

When I got it ready to serve, the soup looked so forlorn and meek that I bulked dinner up with a small plate of crackers and assorted cheeses.   After his first taste, my husband silently took most of the cheese and crumbled it into his soup.

I ate mine because I was hungry, but it was as inoffensive and bland as a sheet of typing paper.  And had about the same flavor.  I spent over 2 hours on this crap and created something that a hospital cafeteria would consider too flavorless to serve to patients.   My inner homestead housewife forced me to put the rest of the soup (yes, I made enough for a small battalion of people with no taste buds) into a plastic container and stick it in the fridge.

Today, in the clear light of the morning-after-yet-another-culinary-debacle I know what I must do:  First, I MUST make it up to both James AND my starving husband and make something for dinner containing butter, cream and a marrow bone.  Second, I must remember to puree the dreck in the fridge so that I can use it for dog food.  I may have to liven it up with Mrs. Dash.

 

Bed Linens and Pudgy Forearms: the impossible quest to make Delia a Better Person

That damn woman popped into my head again the other day, while I was unfolding the top sheet to make the bed:  “Oh, how funny!  You’re putting the sheet on upside down!”

“Shut up!”  I hollered aloud to the empty room.  “Just shut the hell up!  What the hell is your problem anyway??”

Of course, she isn’t the one screaming at the bedclothes. . . 

I defiantly tucked the offending sheet in under the mattress and finished making the bed, covering it with a reversible quilt – HA!  now who’s upside down you anal-retentive harpy-in-my-head??  Huh??

To be perfectly fair, I’m pretty sure she’s not really a harpy, and as for anal-retentive, I’m actually the one hanging on to an offhand comment made over a decade  ago. . .

Here’s the backstory:  About ten years back I was visiting a friend in Tucson.  A group of us were staying at her house for a big girly slumber party and I was helping make up beds on the floor so we could sleep off the gallons of wine we had consumed.  I grabbed a sheet, shook it out and was draping it over an air mattress when one of the other girls burst out laughing:  “Oh my God, how cute, you’re putting the sheets on upside down!”

“Huh?”  I had been drinking, but I wasn’t that drunk and I couldn’t figure out what “upside down” meant in the current context.  I had the top edge up by the pillows and the smaller seam was at the bottom of the “bed,” so I was thoroughly confused.

“Look,” she grabbed the sheet from me and flipped it over.  “The print goes on the underside so that it’s showing when you fold the sheet down.”

I had never heard of such a thing.  But as I quickly thought about it, wouldn’t you want the print to be on the top side so that anyone inspecting your bed would be able to see the print on most of the sheet instead of just the little bit at the top, under the pillow?  What happens when you actually get into the bed and pull the covers up over your shoulders?  Doesn’t the bit that was folded over get unfolded, thus displaying the unprinted side to any onlookers?  And who the hell is so wrapped up in precision bed-making that this matters anyhow?

She was so adamant and, in my foggy memory, so right that I didn’t dare ask why we cared about such things when we were just piling blankets and sheets on the floor so we could all pass out in relative comfort.  However, I recall making the remainder of the beds as she ordered, feeling completely inadquate as a wife and maker of beds.  

Now, everytime I make the bed, her voice peals out in my brain – calling me on my egregious bed-making error, trying to correct my lamentably unsophisticated behavior and truly, just trying to make me a better person. 

As silly a detail as this is, bed-making gal is firmly settled into my choir of inner critics.  She keeps company with miscellaneous teachers and mentors, a large and vocal contingent consisting entirely of my grandmother,  and, perhaps the worst one, rolled-up-sleeves-girl.

Rolled-up-sleeves-girl was my best friend in high school.  A year behind me in class (but about my age), she was everything I was not: pretty, well-dressed, confident and popular with the boys.   I didn’t want her homelife (which I suspected was pretty sordid) but I did want boys to look at me the same way they looked at her. . . with avid, leering interest as opposed to mild, sneering disgust.

I know that as a teen Svengali, she tried very hard to make me a popular cute girl, but I was a hopeless case:  my hair never feathered properly (this was the early 80s), my mom wouldn’t buy me the “right” Nikes, and I insisted on rolling the sleeves of my white button-down shirts up over my elbows.   

She finally got me to quit this last foible (and the only one I had any real control over) when she informed me that the reason the impossibly cute boy from another town that we had met at a speech tournament in Riverton (and who, until that very second, had been writing me ardent letters with hearts and smiley faces all over them – almost like a real boyfriend) liked her better than me was that, and I quote: “he thinks you should dress cuter and he doesn’t like the way you roll your sleeves all the way up so your pudgy forearms are sticking out.” 

Pudgy.  Forearms.  Dear God, was that what he said?  To her?  We were talking on the phone when she told me and I immediately willed the handset to turn into a bazooka and blow off my head like in the cartoons.  I was horrified and mortified and every other kind of “-fied” that a dorky high school girl with no self-esteem could feel in such a situation.

Of course he would like her better.  What cute boy in his right mind would want to be seen with a girl possessed of the dreaded pudgy forearms?  Of course he would want to date the much more attractive and fashionable best friend.  So, bowing like the whipped and servile cur I was, I wordlessly relinquished my “hold” over the impossibly cute Shaun (or Sean or Shane) Donahoe and allowed the two beautiful people to do whatever it was that beautiful people did when they were 14 and lived in small towns in Wyoming, separated by hundreds of miles of sagebrush and antelope.

It wasn’t until I told this story (for the first time ever) to some girlfriends a couple of years ago that I realized the truth:  the impossibly cute Shawn (or Shane or Sean) Donohoe never said anything about my pudgy forearms, and probably didn’t even realize they existed.   As one of my friends yelled:  “Seriously, Delia, what straight 15-year old boy talks like that?”

Huh?  Oh!  She made it up!  Well, not the part about my pudgy forearms, (although I prefer to say that I’m sturdy), she made up the part about him saying that!  DUH!

So, she got what she wanted: the impossibly cute boyfriend who lived in a different town and a lackey/girlfriend who finally quit embarassing her with her tightly rolled-up sleeves and bulging forearms.  Me? Well, I got a little rude awakening about my fashion naivete and, later, got the hell out of that town and out of that friendship. 

Some 25 years later, I cannot put on a button-down shirt without hearing her say “pudgy forearms” in her high-pitched baby-talk lisp.  Even though I finally figured out that I had been rather heartlessly duped, and even though it turned out that Shane (or Sean or Shaun) Donahoe was NOT the love of my life, I just can’t get that bitch out of my head.   Those sleeves never get rolled up more than one or two turns.  OK, girlfriend, you won.

On the other hand, I can make my bed confidently, refusing to put the top sheet on the way bed-making gal told me to, telling her I LIKE my sheets to be upside down.  Then I laugh maniacally, imagining her sitting in my choir of inner critics, squirming in discomfort at my reckless abandon with the linens.  It’s the little rebellions that make it all worthwhile.

 

The Storage “Thing”

After recuperating from the kiss-off letter I got from the job-of-my-dreams a few days ago (9 days 2 hours and 15 minutes ago, actually), I’ve been immersing myself in household projects: stuccoing (is that a word?  it really doesn’t look like a word – looks more like a sound effect . . .), painting, building shelves and refinishing various pieces of furniture.   It is this last part of my project – furniture – which has sent me all over the county looking for credenzas, hutches, armoires and other things with fancy names that all mean “Storage Thing.”  More precisely, I’m looking for a Storage Thing I can afford since I am still not endowed with a REAL JOB.

In a moment of pure serendipity last week (perhaps the fates thought I might need a little picker-upper after having my TENDER AMBITIONS SMASHED TO BITS ON THE ROCKY SHORES OF REALITY AND REJECTION!!!!!!) I came across a piece of furniture at the Salvation Army of all places, that perfectly met my need for a 7-foot long Storage Thing that would fit in our foyer.

I had just about reconciled myself to the idea of spending $600 on ready-made cabinets at Lowe’s that I was going to have to install myself when my inner tight-ass whispered that I should look around just a little more.  The Sallies was the last place on my impromptu itinerary of consignment stores and “estate” sales (if it’s being held in a trailer, is it really an “estate” sale?), and I mentally braced myself for one more unproductive stroll through a linoleum-floored cave full of polyester blends and shitty pieces of Sauder put-it-together-yourself furniture already crumbling into shards of cheap particle board held together only by torn and peeling sheets of vinyl laminate, dried boogers and sheer desperation.

The existence of two desks that appeared to be bona fide antiques in the furniture area of this store raised my hopes a bit – this could be one of those magical Salvation Army stores that gets quality stuff from the rich folks in Scottsdale and Paradise Valley instead of the dingy cast-offs the people in the Section 8 housing didn’t want anymore!

Whipping out my tape measure, I started looking for the elusive 84-inch Storage Thing made of real wood, vaguely rustic, and featuring no chrome, no glass, and absolutely NO design elements resembling either a Kokopelli or howling coyote wearing a bandana.

I walked past a promising entertainment center (technically not a Storage Thing) on my first pass through the furniture but came back to it after having an internal cage-match about purchasing one of the cute desks.  “I don’t need another antique desk,” I said to myself through gritted teeth, “I need a Storage Thing.  Focus on storage.” 

It’s usually during these episodes that the Death Star battle in Star Wars leaps to mind and I become poor doomed Porkins with the droning voice of Flight Leader in my ear:   “Stay on target . . . stay on target. . . stay on target.”  

(Geez Lucas, ya named the fat guy “Porkins?”  I guess we shouldn’t have been surprised that you later birthed the abomination Jar-Jar Binks from your whithered loins.)

 My internal dialogue often breaks free into spoken word, which is useful for keeping salespeople away from me but gets awkward when it sounds like I’m answering myself.

After applying my tape measure to all pertinent sides of the entertainment center (and deciding I could sand off the whitewash that covered the wood and screamed “I’M FROM 1993 AND I’M SUPPOSED TO MAKE YOUR PRE-FAB PULTE HOME LOOK SOUTHWESTERN!  PLEASE IMMEDIATELY PLACE A WOOD CARVING OF A COYOTE WEARING A TURQUOISE BANDANA IN FRONT OF ME TO COMPLETE THE EFFECT!”) I thought I may have a winner. 

It was in three pieces (two tall cabinets and a shorter cabinet that would sit in the middle and act as the altar upon which the Holy Grail of a Sony flat screen would be reverently placed), made of real wood, had nice rustic lines and, better yet, there was a stamp on the back that said “Made in Mexico” - meaning that it was probably made by actual Mexicans (or at least by Guatemalans whose country is so far in the shit that they flee TO Mexico for work.)  This would assist me in reaching the “Mexican-Farmhouse-if-it-was-owned-by-upper-middle-class-Mexicans-who-don’t-actually-farm” look I am going for. 

The price tag said $160 – a good deal for this solid piece of furniture  to which I could easily add shelves and turn into a Storage Thing.   Since I had been thinking about spending 5 times that at Lowe’s (a big box store – booooo), I had no reason not to plunk down this paltry amount and have it go to a rather decent charity that helps locals.  Sold!

If I had any reason to doubt that the fates were giving me a break, it was gone when the nice lady at the cash register told me that it was big discount day, so I was getting the whole damn thing for $100. 

Two mildly beer-soaked dudes helped me load it into the FJ (I actually had to make two trips because they convinced me not to tie one of the tall cabinets to the hood – like the trophy buck I felt it was), and suffering only one blood blister, three ugly bruises to my shins and several thousand splinters embedded in my left hand, I was able to wrestle  all seven feet of my Storage Thing out of the FJ and onto the porch myself. 

Today I bought new door pulls (the cheesy, stained and chewed on (huh?) wood ones just aren’t cutting it) and extra sanding disks and tonight I attack the whitewash.  I’m pretty excited about my new Storage Thing – I think it will look great in the foyer, will hold lots of crap that I refuse to toss and, most importantly, will remind me that when things look their worst, nothing brightens my outlook like a wildly successful extreme bargain shopping trip that results in me coming home with someone else’s cast-off crap that I can spend the next four days screwing around with.  

Ahhh, there’s just nothing like it.

 

You are eminently qualified. . .

. . .but we’ve decided to go with someone else.  Thank you for your time.

When I first looked at the envelope and realized the letter was from THEM – the people with whom I had interviewed on the day which shall henceforth be known as “Faceplant in Macy’s Day,” my gut twisted.  I knew that if they had decided to hire me, they wouldn’t have done it via snail mail.    I said so to my husand before opening it. . .  but I said it hopefully, as if he could change the contents of the letter by telling me that it was common for companies to contact new hires in this manner.

“No,” he said, putting his arm around me. 

We were in the canned goods aisle when I tore open the envelope and skimmed the letter so bursting into frustrated tears was not an option.  I set my jaw and swallowed hard a couple of times before I could say anything.  He gave me a big hug and said what I wasn’t able to articulate at that precise moment:  “That sucks.”

When I had retrieved the mail from the Postnet place next to the grocery store five minutes earlier, a kiss-off letter was the last thing I was expecting.  I had been happily working on some major home improvements all week and was taking a break to do a little shopping with the hubby; I was sweaty and covered with stucco, and professional rejection was the furthest thing from my mind.  Besides, they told me they would call me one way or the other.  For the last four days, I optimistically carried my cell phone around in my paint-splattered cargo shorts, waiting for the promised call. 

It’s almost a week later and I still haven’t gotten that call.  The adult in me says to move on; the little girl in me has her bottom lip stuck out and her feelings hurt.

As with my last unsuccessful bid for a REAL JOB, when I applied for this one I was told by all sorts of people “in the know” that I was perfect for the position; that I was definitely one of the top applicants; that the people doing the hiring were glad to see that I applied; that I was a shoe-in; that they’d be fools not to hire me.

All of that stuff is really great to hear – encouraging words from people you respect do wonders for the ego.  Of course, having to schedule a pee test for the pre-employment drug screen would have been preferable to a thousand words of praise and adoration.

For most of the 13 years of my professional career, I never had much trouble finding employment.  I had a great reputation as a prosecutor so when I switched agencies, getting hired was not an issue.  Now however, stepping out of my comfortable niche, I find myself  in an unfamiliar environment where my previous status as Beloved Golden Child means little to potential employers.  Shaky territory where the focus is not so much on my personal work ethic or sense of professional responsibility but instead on my current attempts to find employment outside  of the courtroom.

All of a sudden I have to explain why The Law Office Of Delia R. Neal, LLC came and went within 18 months (I had no idea I’d hate private practice until I actually did it, duh!); why I worked for three different agencies in 9 years (4 years each at two agencies and 9 months at the last one – ok, I’ll give you the nine month stint but quitting a job after sticking around for four years is “bouncing around?”  really?); and why I think I should be hired for a position with a county agency when I don’t even reside in that county and other applicants do (all right, I got nothing for this one).

Regardless how well-thought out my answers to those questions were. .  . I just don’t think there are “right” answers, or answers that everyone on a hiring panel is going to be comfortable with.  The last couple of years that I’ve spent in mid-life crisis career transition  seem to be overshadowing the full decade I spent serving the people and working in the trenches.    My work experience is not seen as “broad” or “well-rounded,” but flaky and flighty – the career path of a ditzy bimbelina who jumps ship at the first chance for a shinier, prettier job elsewhere.

I know that I made the right decision when I left my last “real” job – and I’ll never regret the 2 years of emotional hell and anguish that immediately followed.   I faced down my biggest personal demons and came out of the whole mess in one piece – mature and thoughtful and no longer a slave to my nonsensical fears and self-inflicted neuroses.  It was one hell of a time, and worth every tortured minute.

However, explaining all of that to an interview panel is not something I think would be in my best interests.  Or theirs.  They’ll just have to wait for the book.

So I’ll send in my next round of applications and, hopefully, get invited for a couple more interviews.  And I’ll practice answering those questions that I know everyone in the interview is dying to ask.  One of these days I’ll have to get them right.