She resigned her position as vice president yesterday and accepted the offer of employment as full time mother, care giver, and general all around boss. Her boss cried when she accepted her resignation and told her that not only would the door always be open, but that if my wife's position had been filled by the time my wife wanted to return to work, the boss would fire someone to make a spot for my wife. That is about the nicest thing she could have said, isn't it?

So, we are going forward without the benefit of my wife's generous paycheck and dental benefits. How bad can it be? Don't answer that.

Let the freaking out begin!

Posted by: Random Penseur at 10:46 AM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
Post contains 131 words, total size 1 kb.

1 Best of luck to you guys RP. For what it's worth, I think you're making a great decision. The missus and I are in the process of trying to eliminate as much debit as possible so by the time our second hatchling comes around in a year or two she can do the same, if she still wants to.

Posted by: phin at January 25, 2007 02:05 PM (4GJQa)

2 Wow, that is some exit interview. That should make you both feel good in that this decision doesn't have to be forever if you decide to change your minds. At least this is something you've had time to decide; my husband was laid off several years ago - and did not work for a YEAR - shortly after our first child was born. Years later, and I still need Dr. Phil's help to work through the mess (none of it financial, surprisingly) that made. You will be fine!

Posted by: Monica C. at January 25, 2007 02:07 PM (PKru1)

3 Have you ever thought of hiring a Mannie? The dogs and I are a package deal, though. You'll do fine with the Viking Bride acting as Captain of the ship.

Posted by: Howard at January 25, 2007 03:39 PM (u2JaN)

4 Wow--that's a ringing endorsement if I've ever heard one. Best of luck. It'll be fun adjusting in the meanwhile, but it'll sort itself out in the long run.

Posted by: Kathy at January 25, 2007 11:19 PM (o9gi3)

5 Actually, I'm surprised you all haven't considered an au pair. My cousin has had one for the last two years because she needed extreme help with her special needs twins. They have worked out extremely well and not felt like the imposition she was fearing. They're also not terribly more expensive than really good child care. The up front cost is the biggest factor. That said, I hope that things work out just as they are meant to for you all. Try not to let the freaking out cloud your senses about this. It will be fine.

Posted by: Linda at January 26, 2007 10:50 AM (m5/BN)

6 Best wishes with the change. I'm sure there will be both good days and bad ones, but the job is one that is necessary and important even though it doesn't always feel too rewarding.

Posted by: Jordana at January 28, 2007 10:27 PM (ECPOw)

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who is giving her notice today (and I am waiting by the phone, unable to concentrate, and consumed with and by concern for my bride), I give you the following. Make what you wish of it:

Plov or Osh, the Uzbek version of "pilaff" ("pilav"), is the flagship of their cookery. It consists mainly of fried and boiled meat, onions, carrots and rice; with raisins, barberries, chickpeas, or fruit added for variation. Uzbek men pride themselves on their ability to prepare the most unique and sumptuous plov. The oshpaz, or master chief, often cooks plov over an open flame, sometimes serving up to 1000 people from a single cauldron on holidays or occasions such as weddings. It certainly takes years of practice with no room for failure to prepare a dish, at times, containing up to 100 kilograms of rice.

Source.

Plov is or should be, Vodka free.

There are so many ways to cook plov; some say there are 200, others-1200. But the main ingredients such as meat, rice, onion, carrot and oil remain unchanged. Then the fantasy sets in: plov with quince, with Turkish pea, barberry, eggs and pomegranate. Classical plov can be light in color (sometimes cal led Samarkand plov) and dark (Ferghana). The second one is heavier, but the taste! By the way, the real men's plov only can be dark.
First peculiarity
You should never drink vodka after plov. You can drink it before, but no way after. Only green tea and such is the tradition; very sensible tradition, mind you. Because only a very healthy person can drink a 40% alcoholic drink after heavy plov. In Central Asia if not every person, then every second can cook plov. Some better, some worse. But when it's necessary to feed the whole crowd of guests for example on a wedding, you'd better call oshpaz. The work of this master will cost a lot and basically he doesn't cook himself, but co ordinates his assistants.

When oshpaz goes to buy ingredients for plov, it is a comedy, which every person is ready to come and see if it is possible. I once have witnessed how one oshpaz, surrounded by the army of his assistants, was choosing rice. He slowly moved from one seller to another in the market, holding a bit of rice, smelling it, saying something to himself, and the throwing it back. All the vendors were very nervous; they were hiding something under their tents and putting something out. If oshpaz buys rice at a pi ace, then it's the best advertisement and this seller will have success in trade for some time, it is important to notice that a good plov can be made only from rice of the recent harvest, if it's from last year, then you can cook something that looks like plov.

Second peculiarity
If you have never lived in Central Asia then I need to explain what "gap" means, it's translated from Uzbek as "the talk", but it has a slang meaning - chat. However in Central Asia this word is used to define a small friendly party held for some reason or without any. And "gap" is a thing for men and usually it takes place not in the houses but in choykhonas (tea houses) or some other places. Plov at "gap" is cooked by the participants themselves and not by the master.

One of my foreign friends who lives in Uzbekistan recalls how they were cooking men's plov: while the person appointed as the chief cook was preparing meat, all the others were cutting onions, carrots and Namangan reddish. The secret of men's plov is: when the cook takes out the cracklings from kazan, there is still a little bone left on cooking in the kazan. This bone gives plov that noble yellow-brownish color and the taste of real men's food. Now every thing is ready and we are ready to taste plov. The cook has to finish some magi n tricks and this is the most difficult moment. Firstly, because others will be giving him vodka to drink and if he will partakes then he will spoil the plov. Secondly, all the drinking people are eager to steal a piece of onion or meat, and he is waving with his Kapkir (skimmer) on them, yelling, that no good plov can be prepared this way.

Third peculiarity
"Oshi Nahor" - morning plov, is one of the elements of Central Asian family traditions. There are millions of guests invited and tables usually are set in the house and not in the yard. The activity takes place from about 6 to 9 a.m. New guests are seated right away on free seats by the young helpers. After three minutes you see green tea at your table and after another five-plov. But if you refuse to come to "oshi nahor" the hosts will consider that you don't respect them, in the season of weddings, you might get a number of invitations for "oshi nahor" in a day.

Again, one of my American friends told me how he had four invitations. All of them were in different parts of the city. He was traveling from 5:30am and by eight he was able to pass al ready 2 plovs. At third plov he couldn't eat and was just sitting there quietly drinking tea. But someone noticed that he wasn't eating and told the master. The master appeared next to him. He was forced to eat. It was a real torture for him to think about the fourth plov, but knowing Uzbek traditions and respecting the people who invited him, he finally went there. He was forcing himself to eat fourth plov. "I thought I would die, or even that I wouldn't be able to stand up and get to the car" - says Michael. But somehow he managed to get to the car and asked the driver to turn the air conditioner on. Slowlo, he came to his work. During the day, one of his colleagues came in saying: It's my father's jubilee today and he is cooking lots of plov. Please, come to my pi ace today.

Source.

We now return to being a Plov free zone.

Posted by: Random Penseur at 12:56 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Or, if done incorrectly, every leap can be the result of an attempt to convert a stumble into a jump in the hopes of landing safely on your feet and, if lucky, with some small amount of grace. But here's the thing about leaping or jumping; I'm afraid of heights.

I'm deathly afraid of heights. I have probably written about that before. I cannot go to the edge and I dislike even thinking about it.

So, sea level is probably a safe place for me. I spent some time, a couple of hours, at sea level on Sunday all by myself. The kids did not want to come with me to walk on the beach in below 30 degree weather. I went to hunt sea glass or beach glass. Sea glass is a piece of glass, usually from a broken bottle, that has been tumbled about in the ocean where the movement tends to polish the edges and make it smooth to the touch. I wanted it either to put in a glass filled jar on the kitchen window sill where it would sparkle when the sun hits it or to glue on to picture frames as decoration along with some shells.

It is awfully peaceful to walk slowly along the winter beach. There are few people and they are mostly solitary types. The wind was blowing and the waves were gently slapping at irregular intervals against the sand. It smelled desolate but the cries of the sea birds gave lie to that impression. There were shells everywhere, the discarded former homes of sea creatures who had no further use for them. The shells crackled under foot as I kept my eyes peeled for the tell tale gleam of sea glass shards. It was terribly cold.

But I was not feeling the cold much. No, I was too involved with taking counsel of my own fears. We are resolved that my wife is going to leave her job to take care of the kids and the consummation of this resolution is fast approaching, brought about by shaken confidence in the ability of the nanny to provide safe supervision of the children. I had run the numbers before and, assuming nothing changes too badly, we can afford to take the income hit for at least a year before she would have to go back to work, again, assuming that other plans do not come to fruition as we are so devoutly hoping/praying. That is what I tried to tell myself, as I contemplated being the sole income source for my family. I tried to tell myself that I could swing this, that I had run the numbers before and I had done that exercise with full theoretical detachment. That exercise, even if it was done as a back of the envelope scrawl, is something that I have been carrying around in my bag like some sort of talisman I can use to ward off evil thoughts and fears. I reminded myself, while slowly pacing next to the water, to trust my dispassionate analysis. That was a comforting thought.

I needed some comfort, I decided. It felt too much like events were rushing towards us, that our leap into the unknown was about to begin with a stumble and not with a considered and confident stride forward into the future. And I don't like heights to begin with, you see.

We did not fire the nanny on Sunday night. Instead, in the kindest way, I told her of our unhappiness with the job performance and our unhappiness with some decisions she had made. I asked her to go away and reflect on how to either restore our trust or help us to figure out a transition so that we could part as friends. I have given up trying to guess what her decision will be; I am simply trying to plan for either eventuality.

I cannot envision how our lives are going to change as a result of this decision. It feels like the right thing to do for the children, though. I hope I can remain flexible enough to keep my balance as we stumble forward. It would be too much to hope that it looks graceful.

Posted by: Random Penseur at 09:43 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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I may not have totally reached my physical limits, but my body is telling me that the limits are in sight. And by "in sight", I do not mean something glimpsed just peeping up over the horizon. I instead mean something on the grill of the Mack truck that is looming larger in your vision with every passing second.

I am 39; not 29. I should know that the following may be too much:

Mon. 45 minutes serious cardio.

Tue. Squash, additional cardio, pilates.

Wed. Heavy weight lifting, Squash.

Thurs. Squash, additional cardio.

Fri. Squash, pilates.

The body is cramped and hurts a bit in places where I wasn't entirely aware I had places (pace, Ms. West). I will not try to slip out of the house early on Saturday morning now to go play squash at the local racquet club. I want to, mind you, but I will not. Instead, I will sink into my own decrepitude and hope that the damage I have wrought will have healed up by Monday, so I can start all over again. After all, I have a squash date that morning.

Still, I have never been one to acknowledge physical limits, at least, not happily or willingly. So to be confronted by them now is not pleasant.

I have no intention of aging gracefully.

Posted by: Random Penseur at 11:40 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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I would like a recommendation for a good book. I just finished Amos Oz's memoir, which I wrote about in an earlier post. I am currently reading a lot of foreign language translated into English mysteries. These can be a bit hit or miss but I tend to enjoy them just the same. Still, I feel a rut coming on. Also, I seem to be lacking the motivation or energy to begin to tackle the sizeable selection of unread non-fiction I have been accumulating like a squirrel with a pile of nuts.

Otherwise, I have been reading out loud to the kids and they have been responding very well to the old great ones, including, Charlotte's Web (finished), Stuart Little (in process), The Wind in the Willows (in process), and the Jungle Book (finished). I can't wait to start reading them Kim and the Three Musketeers, but that may be a couple of years yet.

So, what would you recommend for me? Classic or non-classic, new or old, recently read or way old favorite. Let me have it.

Thanks!

Posted by: Random Penseur at 10:41 AM | Comments (14) | Add Comment
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I made a fateful discovery this weekend and I wanted to pass it along to all of my married friends. I discovered what to do when my wife has been hit by the double whammy of a baby with dual ear infections plus her getting PMS. Sleep deprivation plus hormones and emotions running all over her body. Exhaustion plus irrationality with a dash of crying or sometimes downright anger. You get the picture, right? It was a long weekend and destined to be even longer if I didn't figure out how to make amends for all of my many, and unspecified, transgressions.

Well, I figured it out. Here's what I did and you can do it, too.

First, go to the best bakery in town. The place that makes cakes a woman would kill for.

Second, pick out the triple chocolate cake. The chocolate cake with the chocolate frosting and the chocolate mousse filling and the little bits of crushed chocolate bits on the outside.

Third, tell the baker, when she asks you what you want written on the cake to just write: Sorry!

Fourth, present the apology cake to the wife. Enjoy being excused for everything bad you have done up to that point during the weekend. Hope that she saves you a slice.

I wish I had stumbled upon this method sooner. Still, better to acquire wisdom late than never at all.

Posted by: Random Penseur at 01:26 PM | Comments (45) | Add Comment
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1 Awwww, how sweet!

Posted by: Hannah at January 15, 2007 05:54 PM (ImQx2)

2 Good to know. Not like I'll ever have that problem with the husband, but I read it to him and he's filed it away for future use. Although, are you sure you're not back in the doghouse for announcing to the world that the Viking Bride is PMS'ing? I hope you're not in trouble. IF so, go for the German Chocolate this time around. Coconut works wonders. Also, a nice white cake with raspberry and cream filling and covered in marzipan works well, too.

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3 You are an AWESOME and WONDERFUL man! ; )

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I gave up sleeping this morning at 2:20 and probably should not be allowed near a keyboard, but, hey, no one is up to stop me.

I've been reading this interesting memoir, A Tale of Love and Darkness, by Amos Oz, an Israeli writer, inter alia. One thing he wrote (p. 32) was: "Sometimes, facts threaten truth". I've been thinking about that, off and on, as I've tried to decipher the meaning of it all. Four simple words. Four very difficult concepts.

Sometimes. Temporal issues. Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't. It is not at all clear to me when it does and when it doesn't. No way to tell. But, clearly, its use means that what follows is not an absolute rule but a mutable rule, to the extent that a rule can even be mutable. I guess, if it is mutable, maybe it cannot be a rule at all.

Facts. I think facts are clear. Facts are verifiable and concrete things. Things you can look up, things you can measure, things you can rely on to always be correct, that is, until the tools you use to measure and verify improve.

Threaten. This is a scary word. And it implies that the word that it modifies can feel emotion and can discern and analyze situations, not a word that normally applies to an inanimate thing, such as the word truth.

Truth. Well, I used to think that I knew what truth was, but I am much less certain. I used to think that truth and facts were if not the same, at least living in the same apartment building and maybe on the same floor. You know, sharing the same elevator every day. For more, you can see the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. An interesting read, more or less. I no longer, anyway, think that there necessarily is one immutable truth anymore. Truth is probably more of an instinct, more of a sense as to what feels right when you measure any given set of circumstances against your accumulated storehouse of experiences from which, generally speaking, you derive your ability to form judgments -- both moral and perceptual.

So, if you take that wishy-washy sort of truth is whatever feels right approach as a definition, and I am not at all convinced you should, then the statement that truth can be made to be less true by a fact is correct. Any fact that causes you to change your judgment will have to cause you to change your perception of a truth.

Maybe, also, a fact is just a truth that is all grown up.

Not all truths are capable of being shook so easily, some of them being premised on terrifically firm foundations. But some truths are nothing more than unexamined beliefs received in the form of generally accepted wisdom and thus can easily be threatened by a fact or two. I decline to give examples right now, although they certainly exist.

And so, I suppose, the word threaten makes sense as well since, according to the above, truth is both variable and experiential, emotional and logical, filtered through a set of experiences and prejudices and pre-existing beliefs. Although, cognitive dissonance is the mind's way of dealing with this "threat" since it allows you to reconcile contradictory beliefs and facts and truths and allows you to hold both comfortably in your mind at the same time when really doing so should drive you to total distraction. So the threat is, while compelling, not critical.

Since I am not sure where I was going with all this, I cannot be certain I have arrived at my destination. If you, gentle reader, got this far, you can let me know if I should pick my pen up once more.

In any event, it sure as heck beat watching that Amanda Peet and Ashton what's his name horrible movie on HBO at 3:00 this morning.

Posted by: Random Penseur at 03:14 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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You know those moveable radar detectors the police put up? They tell you the current speed limit and then show you how fast you are going. We have one the police set up in Westport all the time.

Am I the only one who wonders how high they can get that sucker up to?

Assuming, of course, I am not driving with the kids in the car and further assuming I am in my wife's BMW.

Posted by: Random Penseur at 10:30 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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I was driving along the Post Road, early Saturday morning, after doing my grocery shopping (I did a lot of cooking this weekend) and I was sort of taken aback by the number of Lexus cars and SUV's on the road. They looked kind of nice and I got to wondering about whether I would want to buy one. And while I was wondering, really, no more than idly musing, I was sort of eavesdropping on my thinking not quite out loud and I heard myself, to my horror, wonder: Who drives a Lexus and do I want to be that person?

Feels like a triumph of marketing to me, that I am more concerned, at a somewhere between conscious and unconscious level, about the image or the lifestyle or the personality associated with a car than I am about whether the car is a good piece of design and will be safe and reliable. I like to pride myself on the thought that I can make decisions rationally, that I will decide on major items based on the sensible criteria. I suppose, however, that I am not immune to questions of style and image -- no matter how wonderful the Yugo may be (and it isn't), the fact is that I will not drive one. No, the other problem is that I am woefully unqualified to judge based on first hand information how well a car is made. Cars are now way beyond the ability of a shade tree mechanic to repair and maintain. So, maybe all you have left is style and image and anecdotal information such as you get from Consumer Reports.

When I related all this to my wife, she reassured me that actually this was a failure of marketing. Marketing doesn't want you to consciously think about these questions. They want to influence you in more subtle ways, in meta ways, and if you ask the questions than marketing has failed.

Scary, when you reflect on it, how marketing shapes our decision making process at a fundemental and basic level such that the decision itself is corrupted from the get go. I mean, if the way you set the process up to make the decision is faulty, than the decision has no integrity either, does it?

Posted by: Random Penseur at 09:36 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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1 My husband drives a Lexus. In fact he's on his second GS and he *loves* his car(and he's not a car person). It goes in twice a year for servicing and that's it, they never break down. Reseach had everything to do with our decision to purchase the first car; he got tired of servicing his North American branded cars 'constantly' and after we read CR and a bunch of other publications, we bought the Lexus and never looked back.

Posted by: Jocelyn at January 02, 2007 05:18 PM (bwFKZ)

2 Fight the power! Until you decide to give in, then it'll hurt less because you showed you had a spine for a time. Besides, Lexii are nice cars. And, if you need a sensible reason, they're made by Toyota---and Toyotas are PHENOMENALLY reliable.

Posted by: Kathy at January 02, 2007 06:16 PM (+oKa7)

3 Gee, RP, doesn't that last paragraph describe every decision in this life. I stand accused of being close-minded, opinionated, and inattentive, but it's the only weapons I have to fight against the flawed decision-making you so aptly pointed out. So obviously, in your situation, more important than the make of the car is the color of the interior, the coffee-cup holder design, and the quality of the stereo system, right?

Posted by: Roberta S at January 03, 2007 04:02 PM (NHAyo)

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Beats me. Like I said to a friend on the train this morning after he said something about nothing changing, same job as last year; that's true, but I cannot keep doing it with the same bad attitude.

So, here's to an attitude adjustment. I think what I need is a really good fight. Something to get the juices flowing.

What do I have? Well, besides the beginnings of a cold, thanks to the Boy Child, I have a motion in a, get this, SEVENTEEN YEAR OLD CASE in which no discovery has ever been taken. The wheels of justice grind slowly, I know, but this is a bit unusual even for New York.

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