Never Too Early

Occasionally at work we joke on particularly stressful days that it’s has to be 5 o’clock somewhere so we can go out and get a drink to deal with the day’s stresses. Even if it is a joke, there are times in the day when it’s just too early for certain things. But that all depends on whom you ask.

The other day my mom, sister and I went shopping for produce at a farmer’s market. My husband was kind enough to drop us off after running an early errand. My mom loves to go to this market because it has quality vegetables and fruits priced very inexpensively. She also likes them because outside their door there is a pizza shop. She thinks the pizza shop is great because it too is cheap – a large pie of 8 slices is only $8.

As my husband was approaching the market, my mom asked “Should we get a pizza too?” I looked at the clock in the car. It was only 9:45 am. I told her “Mom, it’s not even 10 yet.” To which she responded “So what, we get it now and eat it later for lunch.” Really, there was no arguing with that logic. My mom seemed to think it was close to lunch somewhere so we could buy a pizza and eat it at the appropriate time.

I’ve mentioned before how much my mom loves pizza but this was definitely a situation I never expected to encounter. It made my husband laugh and it definitely put a smile on my face, especially when she came out of the pizza shop at 10:10 am with a large pizza box in her hand.

Best in Show

Back in February I got tickets to The Westminster Dog show. I took the day off to go see what all the fuss was about. As a dog person, I felt I needed to see what happens at this insider event. 

I expected it to be in the actual arena of Madison Square Garden as I had seen on television so many years. But that event would be the following day. What I saw was the actual decisions for best of breed.

My sister and I arrived at 9 am to an area full of seats looking onto a small amphitheatre which was divided in two. One side held one set of dog breeds, while the other side had another. Luckily we got to see the terrier breeds which are some of my favorites. The handlers gathered in each of the judges mini-circles. Each dog was placed on a pedestal (because they were small) and inspected. This task disturbed me because sometimes the handlers put the dogs up on the stand by picking them up by their tails. The dogs seemed not bothered by this but I sat there feeling a visceral pain in my phantom tail. In addition the judges often ran their hands down the dogs’ private area and would squeeze. This made me twinge but the dogs continued on with their chests forward and unmoved. 

After each dog was checked, the judges asked the handlers to let the dogs walk around so they could see their stride. From there the officiate would line up the dogs in order of preference and have them do one more walk in a circle. At this point, the judge would point to the dog and call out a numeric value between 1 and 3. Number 1 became best in breed that would be moving onto the bigger breed category the next night.  

Overall it was fun and there were a number of famous people at the event. So it was good people and animal watching all around. If I were to go next year, I’d like to go to the bigger and televised event. Or I’d try to see more of the breeds that I like such as retrievers, terriers and shepherds.

The Unknown

I am a very inquisitive person. You can ask my husband how annoying I can be when I have a list of questions I want answered. My job is to listen to people, see what they want and ask a lot of questions. Part of my curiosity about everything is quenched by asking questions. I have never been very satisfied with situations where an answer can’t be provided. 

The hardest part of losing someone is that you never really know where they are. Faith can give you answers. Despite all that faith, it’s not a concrete answer. It’s not visual or physical proof of where the person is. And I have always had my issues with faith, partly because it never provides the answers that I find satisfying.

The piece of losing my father that I grapple with on a consistent basis is the not knowing where he is and what he is doing. Is he really in a better place? Is he enjoying this time away from us? Although I can understand that he’s no longer suffering because he’s not in the physical realm, I wish I knew if he is better off. 

Occasionally I hope for a dream or some other sign from him where he tells me he is doing well. I feel as though I have had a few dreams where he was trying to ‘tell’ me something. And I have taken those dreams as something reassuring. However there are times when I wonder how concrete are dreams  if we sometimes forget what we dream. 

I know I should let it go and be more open to the mysteries of ‘the other world’ but I find it hard especially because I can’t ask anyone who has been there for insight. Yes, my stubbornness is posing this problem but I guess the apple didn’t fall very far from the tree.

Characters

As I have mentioned in other entries, I really enjoyed my time in high school. Many people dreaded their high school experience but I have many fond memories that always bring a smile to my face even now. Much of my nostalgia is based on the teachers I had. They were quite a group of characters and their sense of humor appealed to me back in high school as it does now many years later.

Our biology and physics teacher was one of those people you didn’t quite know what to make of. He would occasionally spew off phrases to us in German thinking we understood him. When we looked at him quizzically, he would sometimes realize he wasn’t speaking English. After 4 years though, we all became pretty proficient at knowing what he was saying to us when he was speaking in German. He also had a bag full of ridiculous proverbs he would say to us. Sometimes they made sense and other times, they would lead to more puzzled stares.

Our freshman English teacher, who also taught us French for a year, once caught one of our classmates chewing gum in class and made her wear the piece of gum on her nose the rest of the day. As cruel as it sounds, I enjoyed the idea of it because the girl chewed like a cow.

The other teacher who taught us French was a total crazy loon. There were times when we would point out her mistakes to her. She was much older and lost her train of thought on many occasions. She also had a habit of burping in the middle of her lessons. After two years of that we couldn’t wait to get rid of her.

One of our religion teachers had a feminist streak in her and so she taught us how to interpret scriptures and other biblical texts with a pointed gaze of people who had been excluded from the stories – the women. She was a fascinating teacher because she was tough and intelligent and demanded a lot from us. At the same time, I think we all learned an immense amount from her – not only on a religious level but on a critical thinking path when looking at literature.

All our literature teachers were great because they appreciated and enjoyed the texts we were reading. They gave us all a heightened sense of appreciation for literature in its many forms and what could be learned from books and poems and plays. We were encouraged to question everything, not just literature and it prepared me for college in ways I never imagined while I was in high school.

Yes, so some of the teachers were characters but they definitely kept the classroom interesting. Overall they taught and prepared us for the real world.

Angels and Saints

There is an expression in Italian that basically says there are some people who drive even the angels and saints insane. The idea of it is that angels and saints are hard to annoy. However there are those certain few who know how to push even the most patient people’s buttons.

The last few weeks of work have been very demanding both time-wise and energy-wise. With our team broken up into distinct areas, everyone has a lot of work on their plate. In addition to running the completion of a project, I have to do extra work because the other half of our team left their work to move onto another area.

Normally this wouldn’t be an issue as I’ve always worked what seems like 4 jobs at once. What has been annoying for me the last few weeks is the number of iterations I have had to do for a requirement that the business wants to implement as soon as possible. I have written the description into a number of documents based on the team’s processes. I have even gone over the documents with a number of stakeholders. After going over this business need a number of times and having all these people on calls, I began to get frustrated when people were still asking me questions about it, especially when the questions could have been answered by simply reading any of the numerous documents again!

One person in particular has claimed that she ‘can’t get her head around this requirement’ and I want to wrap the requirement around her head with a sledgehammer. Her comments have made everyone insane because it’s a very obvious thing. Despite the number of times we have gone over this request and ensured that everyone has understood, she has claimed she has. Yet, she keeps raising questions about the same thing over and over. At one point my boss asked me to join a call with the ‘wrapped around her head’ girl and I nearly lost it. I told my boss that she is the type of person that could make angels and saints go insane.

Normally I have a lot of patience with people but I have completely lost it with this person. If her mission was to drive everyone crazy, then she has been highly successful.

Eyes Wide Shut

There are days when parts of your body don’t cooperate with the rest of it. I have had a number of recent days where I have felt physically awake but my eyes have acted of their own accord. They remain open and active but they really want to sleep and act as if they were closed. No matter how much water I rinse them in, they react as though they are still in the midst of a relaxing sleep. Staring at a computer screen for most of the day certainly can’t help. I’ve always been good at taking ‘eye’ breaks – staring away from the screen for a bit, rubbing my palms together and placing the warm palms on my hands. But there just isn’t much that comforts my eyes on days like this. Normally I would attribute it to allergies. If that were the case, I’d expect tear ducts to be over performing. That’s what they normally do. I haven’t had any of that this year despite the usual headaches and sinus pressure. Maybe my allergy symptoms are changing. Who knows? I have entertained bringing in a cold eye mask but that would look weird at work. I could be a new superhero -- creating and saving files at the speed of sound, solving problems while bounding street puddles, etc. I would call myself Captain Computer. Well, I hope this weird eye spell stops soon. It has become very difficult to sit at my desk doing work when all I want to do is take a nap and rest my eyes.

A Slice of Heaven

Everyone has their opinions on how comfort foods should taste. I have very strong opinions about how certain meals should be but I’m pretty flexible about some things. The one thing I definitely will not budge on is pizza (as you are probably aware from earlier entries).

Last night I visited a new pizzeria on the Upper West Side that touted itself as being straight from Naples (Fratelli La Bufala). I have had many phenomenal pizzas in my life but there is something very special about the pizzas I had in Naples. The place was bustling last night as I think many people had the same idea that I did. Get in there and try the pizza before it becomes too insane. The initial look around was positive. The pizza maker and the oven greeted me as I walked in. The smell coming off the oven made me salivate (my Pavlovian response is triggered by many baked items!). There were a number of children sitting at tables with their faces smeared in tomato sauce.

I was seated very quickly and given the menu. I deliberated for a long time on which pizza to get but I ultimately stuck with the basic Margherita pizza. You can tell a lot about the other pizzas in an establishment by just trying their Margherita. I spent some time looking at what the people at the tables around me had ordered and my stomach began growling. There were a number of salads that were composed of fresh mozzarella that looked exquisite.

Finally the moment I had been waiting for arrived. The pizza was the perfect personal size on a lovely plain white plate. It was cut into 4 small pieces with a few sprigs of basil to complete the tri-color I’ve expected in my pizzas. The sauce and the cheese covered enough of the surface area and the crust was thin but substantial enough to not take over the whole pizza. It covered 10% of the pizza which was a good statistic to me.

And when I bit into the pizza I was transported to all the buzzing piazzas in Italy – the colorful fruit and vegetable markets, the shoppers scampering back home and the tourists sitting and drinking wine. I was back enjoying my summers with my cousins – the practical jokes, the silliness and the warmth. The mozzarella was light and slightly sweet. It matched the thin crust and tart sauce perfectly. By the time I was done, I was content and not overwhelmed. A good pizza shouldn’t ever make you feel like you ate a ton. It’s a light meal for a warm evening that will be followed by a stroll. Although like any comfort food, it is a meal that warms your heart and tummy at the same time. Despite the cold weather and insane winds, I felt cozy and cuddly after eating my pizza.

The pie really reminded me of that scene in “Ratatouille” where the critic is returned via memory to his favorite meal. I was momentarily returned to that great country and those fond memories and I would highly recommend this pizzeria. Although the pizza was out of Italy, there are still some kinks they need to iron out with service. Even if it reminded me even more of Italy (the leisurely pace, the waiters who talk to you and the scrambling confusion), it will not and didn’t not serve a Manhattan clientele well. Hopefully that will be straightened out very soon so that others can enjoy the memories that I did.