It’s now late September, and my garden isn’t quite sure what to do. The temperature has dropped and given us nights in the 50s and 60s, and I have harvested at least a dozen pumpkins, which being changing color when the temperature approximates fall.
One pumpkin ripe and ready to pick, one just formed.
But this week, we’ve had highs in the high-80s, and are expecting a drop to just below 70 by Saturday. There are flowers open on my pumpkin because of the heat, with new fruit having formed in the last week, while other pumpkins are ripe and ready to pick. The newly formed fruit will probably not survive, though it may be that a neighborhood squirrel or raccoon gets to them before the weather does… they’re quite soft at this stage.
My tomatoes are going through similar waves of ripening or over-ripening. On the extremely hot days, they split before they’re fully ripe, which means they go bad before I get to them. If they’ve split and haven’t gone bad, they frequently get eaten in the picking process, to avoid losing them. (Not to be confused with other tomatoes that get eaten in the picking process.)
I can’t really complain, as it extends my harvest. But I was swatting away mosquitoes this week, and I’m fairly sure none of us appreciate them having an extended season.
My next great adventure starts today. (Well, last week by the time you read this.) Two days after my official termination date at my previous job, I accepted a job offer. For my first week of work, I’m flying to San Diego to meet my co-workers at the main office. This is my first visit to California as an adult; I don’t count the couple times I’ve stopped in the San Francisco airport.
One of the important items on my prep list was finding the nearest WTSDA dojang. As it happens, the instructor there was the guest master when I pre-tested for my black belt in February. My karate uniform was actually the first thing I packed. I’m also staying about 10 minutes from a beach, so I packed my bathing suit – and sunscreen! – as well. Other than that, it’s work clothes, pajamas, and toiletries. Oh, and two books – of for each flight. I plan to re-read Anno Dracula on the way out and The Lightning Thief on the return trip.
The work week went well, the extra stuff went almost as planned. I attended a great karate class, and tried an assortment of interesting restaurants while I was in California. I didn’t go swimming, but I did dip my feet in the ocean at sunset my last night there. I resisted going to Legoland after work – theme park prices make more sense as an all day outing. And, except for the transit to and from the airport, I wasn’t near downtown San Diego, so I didn’t get to see any of the excitement surrounding the San Diego Comic-Con.
Lovely gardenias in Carlsbad
What did thrill me was the gardenias near the dojang; the nearby shopping center had them planted all around the edges of the parking lot, so getting out of the car, I could smell them immediately. Oh, and I found a game store. (Of course I did.)
As a project manager, gardening is my second best reminder that I can’t control all of the variables in a project. (Parenting is the first.) I can do all the planning and prep that I want, but I have no control over the weather, and realize that the germination rate for seeds varies. So while I’m sad that the okra didn’t germinate – it did so well the first summer in this garden – the next step is to fill that space. I love being able to say that I picked my salad the morning I’m eating it, so I went ahead and planted some salad greens there.
It’s not like the rest of the garden is struggling. Starting in the top left, there’s my star garden out front, my low beds in the far back, my keyhole bed out back, and the garden tower by the driveway.
Herbs and sunflowers; tomatoes and flowers; carrots, pumpkins, and peas; tomatoes, marigolds, and salad greens.
The star is mainly an herb bed, with an overwhelming amount of mint and cilantro (they’re both spreading), chives, and some basil, along with a huge number of sunflowers. At this point, the low beds will be all tomatoes and salad greens this year, along with flowers in some corners. The keyhole bed is being overwhelmed by pumpkins – I had to search for the Brussels sprouts this morning – and a couple of the flowers are already forming pie pumpkins. There are also carrots and peas in there, though the pea harvest will be done well before the pumpkins are ready. The garden tower has bite-sized tomatoes at the top, salad greens in the bottom rows, and marigolds filling in the rest.
I walked into work Monday morning, only to walk back out within the hour carrying about half of my desk’s contents and some paperwork about the layoff process. (I went back later in the week for the other half of my stuff.) This wasn’t a complete surprise – we had been warned by management that layoffs might be happening in the near future due to some business changes – but there’s a huge difference between knowing a layoff might be coming to actually having it happen. I drove home, calling my best friend on the way, and unloaded my lunch bag and the box from my desk. After a quick glance at the paperwork – I knew I wasn’t ready to read the details – I did what felt like the most logical option: I went to a morning karate class. Stress relief seemed like a good idea.
After karate, I came home and polished my resume and copied the updates to LinkedIn, re-read my cover letter, and read through some of the paperwork. The actual job hunt would start Tuesday.
I’ve been at this job for about four years now, and it saw me through a number of significant changes in my personal life, not the least of which were a divorce, buying a new house, the sudden need for a new car, and earning my first degree black belt. That’s a lot in four years, particularly when you take into account that I was working full-time, and for a couple semesters, teaching an evening class on top of that. It takes a pretty incredible company with a good understanding of work/life balance to manage that. Unfortunately, even good companies have rough patches, which leads me to my current predicament. I will miss the amazing people I’ve been working with these past few years, yet I’m curious to see what new opportunities are out there.
I knew when I bought the house that it would need new windows. The existing windows appeared to be from when the house was built, and windows have come a long way since then, both in the glass itself and the way they’re set in the house. New windows – I’m fairly sure they’re all double-paned now – would provide better insulation against the cold and allow less heat in through the glass. In fact, part of the sales demonstration was plugging in a heat lamp in front of a normal window sample and then a new window sample. (The next part was removing a cat from the sample bag so the samples could go back in.) There was also evidence of moisture settling into some of the window frames, which is never good.
All of the bedrooms had casement windows, which were a bit of a pain. In order to open the window, I had to open the screen on the inside, then unlatch and push the window open, and finish by clicking the screen shut again. The window by the kitchen sink was similar, but inexplicably, had no screen or anywhere to attach one, so that one never got opened. (I don’t want to let insects in or cats out.) The living room and large kitchen windows were floor to ceiling, with a casement window at the top of each. While planning the new windows, one of the company’s representatives noted that the kitchen sink and the guest bedroom windows were actually the same casement windows, just turned on their side. Apparently somebody had spare windows in that particular style when the house was built.
The biggest decision when replacing windows seems to be whether to do it room-by-room or all at once. Since my reason for wanting new windows was for better temperature control (among other things, I don’t have A/C), it made sense to do them all at once and finance the change, knowing that the company I chose could almost certainly complete the change in a single day. That meant spending only one of my elusive vacation days, rather than needing to spread it out over several. As with any big purchase, I had estimates from multiple companies. The deciding factor was really that this company, Power Home Remodeling, could replace my three living room windows with one huge bay window.
My timing was just about perfect – the installation was on what had been the hottest day so far this year, the Friday before Memorial Day. Last weekend beat that day with temperatures in the mid- to high-90s all weekend, and I was delighted to have the new windows filtering out some of that heat.
I actually had a different post in mind relating to earning my black belt, until I saw what Google did with the photos that were taken on my phone in the last few days. When you take several photos in quick succession, Google takes the liberty of making an animated GIF out of some of them. This amused me, so I thought I’d share a couple of them.
After receiving our belts, we performed Sip Soo, one of the open hand forms we needed to learn before testing for the 1st degree black belt. This is a fairly small part of it, just what Google decided to clip together.
Part of Sip Soo (“Ten Hands”), the latest open hand form I had to learn to test for my 1st degree black belt
In addition to the excitement of earning my black belt, I received a sword as a gift. I started learning the first sword form a while ago, and practice it infrequently… it’s a black belt form. Now that I’m a black belt, I need to work on remembering it. I carried my sword to class the other night to show my instructor, and took some time after class to test it out on the mat.
Trying out my new sword.
Exciting times! I’ve already started learning the next open hand form I need for when I test for second degree black belt.
The movie Once, which I had never heard of until the Paramount Theatre announced their 2017-18 Broadway season, won an Oscar; the Broadway production won eight Tony Awards. This final show in the Paramount’s season is both heart-wrenching and inspiring.
Guy and Girl (they are never given names) meet on the streets of Dublin and quickly bond over a joint love of music. In less than a week, they share regrets about their past relationships, Girl pushes Guy into taking out a loan for a recording session, and they fall in love. But the unresolved issues of their past relationships loom over them, or as Girl puts it “You can not walk through your life leaving unfinished love behind you!” To find out what happens with their relationship and past ones, you’ll have to see the show.
They make beautiful music, both individually and together, and manage to draw Girl’s family and flatmates into their recording session, along with the banker who approves Guy’s loan. This is a show that will certainly inspire you to pursue your dreams. Much like the opening show of Paramount’s 2017-18 season, Million Dollar Quartet, the orchestra pit is empty – all of the music is produced on stage, showcasing once again an amazing amount of talent. Unusually for us, we saw it almost at the end of its run… this weekend will be the last at the Paramount. I highly recommend seeing it on stage if you have the chance.
I recently visited Whiskey Acres, a distillery in Dekalb, IL. As I’ve mentioned before, I do like a good whiskey, and by chance had tried a Whiskey Acres Rye at Hardware recently. It was a bit of a random choice at Hardware, given that there are over 400 whiskeys to choose from, and I try not to repeat the ones I’ve had before. I mentioned to a friend that I had tried a rye from Illinois; he responded by telling me about this distillery that he wanted to visit at some point… I looked at the name and realized it was their rye. And it’s only 30 minutes away!
Whiskey Acres buildings, still (her name is Flo), casks, and the array of bottles for tasting.
We decided to meet for the last tour on a Friday night – it starts at 7pm, lasts an hour, and they close at 8:30. The weather was beautiful (not to be confused with “the weather is here…”), and apparently everybody else decided not to be there that night… we were the only people on the tour. And we learned a lot!
With the exception of the malted barley, Whiskey Acres grows all of their own grains. When they’re ready to start preparing the mash, they notify the farmers of how much corn they need, so it’s fresh off the farm when the start using it. The mash will sit for a few days before being introduced to Flo, their still. (Apparently all stills should be named. Please take note if you have an as-of-yet unnamed still.) The still is a full day process, unless they’re preparing vodka, in which case it goes through the still 3 times, so it’s a 3 (continuous) day process. We didn’t meet Nick, but apparently the vodka is made with his tears… 3 days of continously running the still is a long time.
After the distillation, the alcohol is barreled. We learned that to qualify as a bourbon, it must be 125 proof or lower at the point when it’s barreled, and the barrels must be new. The barrels for bourbon are burnt on the inside before the alcohol is added; that’s where it picks up the brown color.
The aging process of a whiskey varies. The smaller casks age faster, they may only take 18-24 months; the large casks can take 5-7 years. And some poor soul has to check them periodically as they approach the potential ready date. Part of me would love that job, but to be honest, my palate is not particularly discerning, so I suspect I would be bad at it.
The tour wraps up with a tasting of their rye, bourbon, and vodka. I am not generally a vodka drinker, yet was pleasantly surprised at how drinkable it was. It didn’t outweigh my normal preferences… in the end, I walked away with a bottle of their bourbon. (And yes, I am sipping some while I type. It seemed appropriate.) You get a souvenir shot glass with the tour, they’ll even wrap it up for you after your tasting.
The Whiskey Acres tasting room is open Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays through November. They don’t serve food, but have plenty of space for a picnic, if you pack one, or you can drive into downtown Dekalb for some lovely sushi or other food options.
Tonight, I will test for my Cho Dan, or 1st degree black belt, in the World Tang Soo Do Association. As part of our preparation, we take a written test (up to twice, if needed; I passed on my first attempt… both times) and write a thousand words about Tang Soo Do.
I failed my sanity check and wrote it as a poem. Enjoy!
Twas two weeks before Dan Camp when my teacher and friend,
as I was leaving the dojang after a fabulous class,
asked “Are you testing this cycle” Thus the planning began.
Was this a thing I could do, could I make it and pass?
If I test in September, and again in the spring,
I would visit Tikal as a new Cho Dan Bo.
Pre-Testing next Dan Camp could be a real thing,
But I found in October one goal had to go.
January’s test is usually late,
So we relearn what holidays help us forget.
Last year it fell on my own birthdate,
Testing so soon would be a close bet.
With regular practice and no real chance to rest,
Was I being too ambitious or just slightly insane?
I gave it my all, I gave it my best.
My knife skills were iffy; my shoulder, in pain.
My breaking was lousy, I can’t say that’s new.
But my one steps were solid, and I knew all my forms,
I was happy to pass and then learn Sip Soo.
But how did I reach this point that transforms?
When Cassandra, my daughter, had turned almost four,
we went to the fair to enjoy rides once again,
stopped at some booths, thought about them no more,
till a phone call came in, we stopped to think then.
Was karate something she wanted to try?
It’s truly hard work, not like Kung Fu Panda,
while really quite fun, Po’s too goofy a guy,
earning a black belt’s more than Hollywood propaganda.
Cassandra’s first karate class
Her first class looked great, she had a fabulous grin,
When I look back at it now, I see many a friend.
Some still do karate, others have left it since then,
I didn’t know yet that our hobbies would blend.
I promised her when I saw the first buddy week,
I’d try it with her, take my turn on the mat,
I didn’t know then that my body would speak,
to say my appendix was a bit of a brat.
I woke up that Christmas in a hospital bed,
worried in two months for my stair climb,
ninety-four flights up I would tread,
forty-some minutes was quite a slow time.
I sat three more months with my books or my hook,
crocheting or reading as she learned some new skills,
watching the classes my daughter partook,
while I thought about crafts and paying the bills.
Hugging Cassandra after my first karate class. This was before I even had a uniform.
Winter became spring, as May rolled around,
I was invited to class, to my delight and surprise,
not just for a week, a whole month I had found,
celebrating mothers with some pain in my thighs.
There was pain in push-ups and again in each crunch,
though I’m flexible enough, I always could kick.
I found there’s no pain in one single punch,
unless there’s a board or even a brick.
I know that my desk job does me no good,
sitting all day is hard to offset.
Needing more exercise, I understood,
karate was something I could not regret.
Training beside that cute smiling face,
spending time exploring one steps together,
driving towards one or other new place,
these are things that we would certainly weather.
I trained most of a year, and at a regional event
saw Grandmaster destroy a piñata with skill,
after our demo teams to great lengths had went
to show their moves, devotion, and will.
The next spring was a setback, unfortunate for me.
It would not quell my passion, this thing with my shoulder,
I pulled something wrong when cutting a tree,
it felt more like I had lifted a boulder.
Six months I sat out, sad to just watch,
knowing it would take time to achieve,
the skills she would learn as she stepped up a notch,
knowing my health would give no reprieve.
On the plus side I’m older, I had a clear goal,
she wasn’t quite six, she was quite content
to learn something new, she was on a roll,
as a Little Dragon, she made her ascent.
The next summer, my health again wasn’t that great,
I wound up in therapy for pulling my hip,
I sat for two months, as it messed with my gait,
and acquired a walking stick on our road trip.
Two thousand fourteen was a year full of jaunts,
Disney, Hawaii, and Guatemala anew,
some were a first, some were old haunts,
this time though, my skills travelled too.
With some consternation and also great joy,
after extensive searching and some interview pain,
I quit my old job for a new employ,
not working at home, but still, quite a gain.
The downside I found was I had a commute,
the length of which would not let me teach;
the earlier class I would overshoot,
the later classes just in my reach.
As time went on, I found my job shifted,
I bought a new house, left for an earlier drive,
the timing restrictions were happily lifted,
I could plan out karate, make sure I arrive.
I knew by this point that I do like to spar,
and I’ve come to enjoy even hapkido.
I’m not quite the addict that my instructors are,
that may be a change I yet undergo.
It took some time, moving’s always a mess,
and a birthday piñata claimed some of my time,
my first Prep class helped me obsess
on the skills I would need to advance my belt climb.
October added another workout,
bimonthly, with black belts, all of them skilled,
I gather there could be a larger turnout,
the space we were using is nowhere near filled.
The day crept closer to the August pre-test,
one skill, then another, I learned on the mat,
with time to spare, I completed my quest,
Ninety one-steps were learned, some fell a bit flat.
There was just one month till the test in the Dells,
just enough time to refine and improve,
and appear before judges with no whistles or bells,
working hard that day to make them approve.
Three days before, a crash dragged me from the mat,
my car was totaled by a distracted pick-up truck.
The doctor said your concussion will prevent testing for that.
Between the diagnosis and car shopping, I was stuck.
At Valpo, five months later, I pre-tested – again,
enjoying myself despite a horrible cough.
I’m ready for April, it’s time to ascertain –
can I break two boards in this final face off?
Sometimes, words get in the way. Or they aren’t right to convey the meaning. That’s when we turn to more creative expressions. If a picture’s worth a thousand words, what’s a song worth?
This song was composed on Noteflight.com, which is a pretty amazing website.
My timing was just about perfect – the installation was on what had been the hottest day so far this year, the Friday before Memorial Day. Last weekend beat that day with temperatures in the mid- to high-90s all weekend, and I was delighted to have the new windows filtering out some of that heat.
