A quote brought to my attention by Toos

"Never ascribe to malice that which can be explained by incompetence." - Napoleon Bonaparte

I gotta keep this in mind. A lot. *grin*

Cooks R Us

Cooking has always brought me a happiness that I didn't think was available.I just fire up the stove, and things start to fade away.
-Paula Dean

We like to cook in our house...when we have the time! We get into rhythms some weeks where we are cooking almost every night...and then other weeks, we are just scrambling to get some kind of dinner together. We do a huge amount of cooking using recipes from Cooking Light, of which we are excessively fond. I just bought a subscription to Eating Well this year, but so far it's not ringing my chimes much.

Solutions

Humor is the shock absorber of life; it helps us take the blows. -- Peggy Noonan.

I had an amusing yet pathetic interaction this morning. I ran by the eye care place to ask if they have those small bottles of contact lens solution, perfect for traveling. [I'd buy the damned things if someone sold them, but after checking CVS, Walgreens, Dominicks, Target & Jewel, no one seems to.] I mentioned that I'd asked when I picked up my contact lenses 2 weeks ago & they were out. I explained I'd be traveling this summer & would really like to avoid hangups with the TSA and with carting around an 8 oz bottle of solution and an 8 oz bottle of saline. The result?

One of the women, we'll call her Helga, there said she couldn't help me, didn't I know that the particular brand had production issues a few months back, and no one makes small bottles of saline.

One of the women, we'll call her Angelica, there stepped around the person named above, went to a back cupboard and came back with .... you get one guess .... yes, the very brand of solution I'd been trying to locate. We joked that it was magic & I thanked her profusely.

Then, I said I was up a creek with the saline, because I hadn't found any in local stores and they didn't have any, either. I explained my biggest concern was I wanted to have something to rinse my lenses in the morning.

Again...guess the result.

Helga shrugged & said that I should probably just take my 8 oz bottle of solution on vacation.

Angelica tilted her head, inquired if I used my particular brand of solution because I was allergic to anything. I told her no, and she walked me over to a cupboard with a different brand of solution. She explained it was an all-in-one kind of deal, and that I could use it to soak my lenses AND rinse them in the morning.

So, here's what I find amusing ... how is that 2 people with the same supposed job have two completely different skill sets in problem solving? I like to think of myself as a problem-solver. There's always a way around, over, under, or through a problem. It may not be a solution I particularly like (for example, having to take 2 large bottles of liquid on a plane and deal with the TSA being a PITA), but it just fascinates me that some people are interested in identifying an array of solutions while others are just totally uncaring of that process. What makes one person so eager to find various ways of getting to the same destination and another completely clueless?
I had a similar thing happen at the post office lately. For the 3rd time in a year, their credit/debit system was down. So they could only accept checks or cash. They didn't tell me this until all 6 of my packages were weighed & metered. I got very angry when they told me the only solution was to come back later, because I had only ONE chance to hit the post office for days, and this was it. I said firmly, "I am looking for a solution, here, people." One of the agents finally piped up about an ATM he knew about across the stress*. SOLUTIONS, people ... SOLUTIONS. Is it really THAT hard???

*uh, that should be "street". As Toos pointed out, a bit of a Freudian slip on my part. *grin*

Expecting help?

A failure to plan ahead on your part
does not constitute a crisis on mine.

I have always loved this quote. It never fails to amuse me how much people will freak out when things don't go as planned, and then expect someone else to fix it. I refuse to get sucked in to others' inability to plan. This is an interesting corollary to a previous post where my beloved came to my rescue when I did not plan effectively. Okay, I DID plan effectively, but then failed to carry out the plan. *grin* I tried very carefully to communicate that I was in a crisis situation, and because we're partners-in-life, I wanted his help, but at no point did I ever feel like the crisis was HIS. Kind of like Dirty Dancing: this is my dance space .... and this is YOUR dance space. My crisis, not his. And I didn't expect him to jump in and rescue me -- hope, yes ... expect, no. I think a lot of it has to do with expectations. When people have failed to plan and then EXPECT someone else to fix it -- that sense of entitlement, and the pouting and screaming that comes afterwards, THAT is what sets my teeth on edge!

What happens when it goes from 63 and sunny to 55 and (briefly) rainy?

Luxury or Necessity?

"Give me the luxuries of life and I will willingly do without the necessities."
-Frank Lloyd Wright

I think my ideas of "luxuries" and "necessities" are strange compared to most.
Necessities: food, basic clothing, shelter, family, friends, vacations & trips, computer, affection, eyeglasses/contacts
Luxuries: cell phone, personal data assistant, extensive wardrobe, expensive perfumes, manicures, frou-frou coffee drinks, alcoholic beverages

And I don't even LIKE the last 3 luxuries!

Some people just have too much time on their hands