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User: ChefNeal
Outspoken Podcasting Chef, Sustainability Advocate and Farmer.

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Home » April 2005
Saturday, April 30, 2005
Lost in Translation

 Je cherche un mot. . . .comment dites vous. . .my life sucks shit?
Cerco una parola . . . .come lei dice. . .why does God have to piss on me so?

WTF is up in the world that things cannot go right for me?  Stuck on a beautiful island, we cannot come up with a blessed thing that will help us financially. We racked our brains today for ideas to make extra money and allow us to live here and keep our house, and thereby let our relations keep theirs. It won't work. And then it happens. After a lovely day working in the garden, enjoying all that this place has to offer, yet trying to be realistic we get a phone call which should have come two months ago! (#&)(#)$)@!#$!!!!
Our property taxes have gone up! And all the money we have saved and set aside isn't half as much as we need.

Oh biene, mieux la chance la prochaine fois!

Tant pis!

posted by: ChefNeal at April 30, 2005 18:36 | link | comments |

Thursday, April 28, 2005
Ahhh

 The Mother has left the building. . . .It took me all day yesterday to recover--mostly because I put my back out doing a "happy dance" :-}

I've been back at my old addiction ebay again. . . .I think I need help. No one could love rejection as much as me--both in my job search, online and personal lives I'm getting hammered. One ray of hope though. In item I sold which had gone unpaid for for a month finally was paid for. I thought I was going to have to turn the dude in, but I'm glad I waited--some times life gets in the way of even eBay.  I've given the other looser the cold shoulder and it seems to have worked.  It's one thing to come to me honestly and tell me the item is defective can I get my money back, but quite another to have bought something you had no idea how to use, destroyed the item in the process of mis-using it and then send photos which acknowledge the abuse and cry fowl.  I'm the lease confrontational person I know, but sometimes being a hard-ass is the only way to live with yourself over ridiculous issues.

The next step is to list a bunch of stuff the in-laws want to part with.  That should be interesting. They have some antique items from the 20's, but will ebay be the right place to sell it?? Worth a try.  I have a whole storage shed of things I should be selling. But it's on the mainland and I am here.  We moved all the stuff we couldn't fit into our house there years ago and have been paying for it the whole while. The idea is when we move we will have a house full of furniture and brick-a-brack we could never have in our cottage.  Nice, but it doesn't look like we're going to sell, or move, or anything any time soon. At least before we're completely broke and have to turn everything over to the bank. . . .Then we'll have the best decorated box city under the freeway.

Some of the stuff in storage is wedding presents we opened the week after our honeymoon 14 years ago and never have looked at or used since.  That was the cool stuff we wanted to keep. We pawned the third and fourth microwave and the xtra toasters and Anchor Hocking ware long since, along with the kitschy cookie bowls in various shapes and the strawberry motiff glass platter set that looked putrid. With 500 guests at the wedding there was only 10% crap, fortunately.  The rest may have to wait and become part of my daughter's doweries.  With Estrogena approaching 12 we only have a few years to make critical alliances with the sons of neighboring land barons if we are to keep the croft. . . .

posted by: ChefNeal at April 28, 2005 14:01 | link | comments |
life, ebay, island life

Wednesday, April 27, 2005
Take a deep breath. . . .

I was under so much pressure yesterday I thought my head would fly off. And not the good, productive kind of pressure, but the spinning my wheels while dealing with the innane kind of, as my anger mounts, pressure.
We have been burried in a perpetual cloud of fog since early yesterday morning. The sun did peak out for a short while yesterday and I took my ducklings--minus Estrogena, who was at death's door with the same auge I had over the weekend--for a walk to escape the Mother, who was non-stop crazy. Relax and enjoy this trio of snaps which were a momentary oasis in yesterday's madness:





posted by: ChefNeal at April 27, 2005 06:50 | link | comments |
photos, life

Monday, April 25, 2005
Update

The weekend has drug by. Finding myself in the grips of the auge yesterday I was able to escape for several naps. Which is a shame, really, because the weather here is wonderful at the moment. However alternating hot and cold bouts made even the briefest trips into the sunshine, bay breeze torture. Still, I managed to cook the Mother lunch and dinner with out spewing all over the place. There she sits at the end of the table, 12 hours a day. "Make yourself some hot lemonade, dear. .  ." At 11:30am she told the girls to go wash their hands for lunch. That slowed it's procurement by a factor of 5.  At 5:30pm she told the girls to clear and set the table for dinner. . . our other guests weren't arriving till 6:30pm. Oh yes, sick as I felt, waves of hot and cold nausea sweeping over me like a tide I cooked a nice meal for the in-laws as well. It's all about buffering. I don't think any of us could survive the onslaught of the Mother for 7 days straight. The key is to strategically break things up. Try to keep the ould thing on her toes, so to speak; which isn't easy given the cyborgs' list of replacement parts which is part of her make up these days. A son should not know of the medical treatments his mother subjects herself to. Husband and Wife, yes: they are pretty much in the same boat as they age together. But a mother who is more than twice the age of her son should not share the details of her failing health like she's dictating a shopping list.  This will get the search engine hits: Artificial Sphincter. Who knew there was such a thing? And why should I have to know? Those two words wiped away years of therapy. No wonder I feel sick this weekend.
Tomorrow is the big day. My littlest ones turn 5. The raison d'etre of the Mothers visit. Ailing as she is should would not miss her granddaughter's birthday for anything. It will be hard to explain to them the hovering cyborg apparition--ghoulish and demonic--in years to come. Note to self: wishes of the dead aside, sell the crypt plot and buy cremation plan for aged ones.
Today will be a wild ride leading up to tomorrow. I must go steel myself for the coming days. . . .

posted by: ChefNeal at April 25, 2005 06:51 | link | comments (1) |
life

Saturday, April 23, 2005
New Camera:FujiFilm s5100

 FInally, my new camera has arrived after many trials and tribulations. I ended getting the thing from Amazon which proved a bit more expensive in the long run, but much, much, much quicker.  I only wish I had ordered from them in the first place.

Here are a few of the initial results, without cracking the manual. The boy was so sad I haven't placed his photo here yet, so this is for him:

Barkley the Leonberger

First Greens

Lovage in Garden

posted by: ChefNeal at April 23, 2005 12:51 | link | comments |
photos, gardening, camera, leonberger

Friday, April 22, 2005
One Week and Counting

 Yesterday was a lost day. I was constantly behind the eight-ball.  Too Estrogena, my eldest, to town on the mainland for her 5 minute Orthodontist check-up. Raced around trying to get my string trimmer fixed--oh why didn't I take it in at the end of the summer last year?!!  Also had to go to the Chiropractor to help with a pinched nerve in my back and leg. I am much better today.  Eight hours later, a whirlwind shopping tour where I kept forgetting things--almost forgot to pick up birthday presents for the little twins--we raced to the ferry terminal to be sure to catch a 3:25 pm ferry. The next one wasn't for 3 more hours, and I didn't want to be unloading the station wagon in the dark while my dinner got cold.  My mother had made it from her side of the country, damn intracontinental travel. . . .she was on the same ferry as us.  The idleness wil begin today. The waiting on hand and foot. The constant sniping about my father. The constant on the fly rule creation for my daughters, who anywhere else in the world are seen as very polite, well behaved, clean, observant, intelligent children. I may be hard on them occasionally, but their life is a cake walk compared to my preteen years.  By the end of the week, they will be over-ruled, crazed, twitching fidgets.  I only hope the presents are worth it for the little ones.
The saving grace is the weather here is georgeous at the moment and I'm going to be out in the garden working my frustrations away.

posted by: ChefNeal at April 22, 2005 07:18 | link | comments (1) |

Wednesday, April 20, 2005
And over on channel two. . . .

 is another fine Gastrocast cooking show with the Podchef.

posted by: ChefNeal at April 20, 2005 13:10 | link | comments (1) |
cooking, podchef, chef, gastrocast

eBay

 What is it about eBay that brings out the crazies? The people who are way to critical and nit-picky to be allowed to breed?  I've been trying to raise some extra cash to make it through my joblessness in relative comfort and what do I get for my honest toil? Negative feed back from some idiot who didn't look to see what he was buying, didn't ask any questions, sniped the auction for the least amount, and then tore the item apart in a fit because he didn't want what he'd bought. Now I've got him emailig me ad nauseum to point out all my character flaws. Sorry. . .already know my character flaws, thank you very much! That's why I'm married. Another auction ended. Plenty of response, plenty of questions, which I answered for all to see. The winning bidder hasn't contacted me in 2 weeks, so I had to turn it over to eBay.  I'd love to know the nightmare stories of the "power sellers" to hear what crap they put up with.  It's almost enough to make me take my panhandling elsewhere.

posted by: ChefNeal at April 20, 2005 11:23 | link | comments (3) |
ebay

Tuesday, April 19, 2005
Post-it Notes

 Firstly, Congratulations to Cardinal Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI--and good luck! I think he will need it. I can't get a job at 36; He's pretty lucky to be employed at 76, perhaps he needs a chef?
Second. Happy Anniversary to the Post-it Note! Twenty five years of posty goodness.  I was just reading this in 43 Folders yesterday thinking about buying my own copy of Rapid Problem Solving with Post-it Notes.  Now if I could just find the one with all the information about the Papal chef's job. . . .

posted by: ChefNeal at April 19, 2005 11:13 | link | comments (2) |
life, chef, 43 folders, post it notes, pope

Pain in the . . .

 The last 48 hours have been very odd.  I woke up Sunday morning with pain in my right leg. Unusual, because I rarely do anything, let alone something which would cause leg pain. I went about my day and worked out in the garden creating a new asparagus bed.  By the end of the day I was definitely sore, with a gaining limp.  Monday morning forget it. I was in total pain, could hardly put weight on my right leg.  I realized though that it is not my leg, but my back which is the problem. 
I had quite abit of cleaning to do in the house--we worked abit on the house before heading out into the garden Sunday--because my mother is coming later this week. 
On a psychoanalytical scale one might say that my leg/back pain is getting worse the closer she gets. Perhaps I want to compete with her on the level of hypochondria, phantom pains, and imagined diseases--she's had a hip replacement: my hip is killing me. Her knee need to be replaced--wait a minute; she is a cyborg--I knew it all along, since I was a kid. What does that make me, other than a traumatised survivor of a hellish childhood?
Anyway. . .I digress. . .this is leading somewhere I think. Beyond the agony I am in over the choice of a New Pope--hey that's it. Being the sympathetic soul I am, I am feeling the weight and grief of a billion people at the loss of their leader and it has miraculously manifested itself in my sacrum.
I need to make an appointment with my bone cracker later today. If only I'd kept a cache of drugs around from four years ago when I was high as a kite, under doctors orders, on muscle relaxers and pain killers. ;-{

So, I get a phone call last night. Normally a phone call at 10pm is cause for alarm--is someone sick, hurt, lost; and this wasn't really any different, just more disturbing. This was a phone call I've been waiting for, which I hoped would come a month ago. In fact I tried to precipitate it several weeks ago to no avail.  My old employer called me out of the blue. No, don't want me back as a Chef, but could I drop everything race down to the city this weekend open up their house for their return, go to the market and get all the provisions, and can I stick around and be their Driver--Big Ed has had an accident and can't work for them for most of the summer?????

I hate phone calls like this which put you on the spot and want you to give a life changing decision then and there when your hands are tied.  I stalled until this afternoon. But I don't know what to do. I have an ethic which demands I don't turn down well paid work, no matter how far into Crazy Town it takes me. These people are really lovely, and I want to help them--well, no: I just have a hard time saying NO. I can think of the money, and how we're struggling now. If this had come two months ago there would have been no decision--I would have lept at it. But, with the Wife's new promotion she is locked into her work now for the rest of the summer. I am torn. If we didn't have kids, or so many. . . .No, don't go there, they make it all worth while. . . .
The fact of the matter is we live so remote that there is no one around to watch our children. We had a nanny once--a great gal who was a member of our family back when I had a great job and was gone all the time and the Wife was on bed rest. But alas, she has moved on, and all the others we have used too. There is no one we can trust our daughters lives with in the nearest seven square miles.
This job would require that I stay in the city, a slave, to drive this couple around a few times a day, cook on the chef's day off, and spend the nights in the house watching silent films with the Master. It is on the low end of well-paid, but is dead easy except for giving up all freedom. I would be at their beck and call 5 days a week, up to 18 hours a day. But only for a while. I know their present driver--the dude who's hurt--got fat and lazy.  Water a few plants, polish the cars once a week, sweep the driveway and drive them around most days. . .but he used to be able to get away at night and go home. For me it is spending the night there. . . the driving job ends by 4pm, but you can't go anywhere--they want me to stay there, eat dinner and spend the night 5 nights a week. It was different when I was the Chef. I was done with dinner by 8pm. I'd go for a walk and settle in for the night. I was up by 6am to prep for breakfast, lunch and marketing. My days were mostly busy and time went fast.  And wouldn't I be making the current Chef feel uncomfortable? He may be good, but I don't think he has my background. (Not that these folks eat my sort of food--they enjoy the full range of Betty Crocker's best dishes from the 40's).

Ah, what a dilemma. This all comes with my mother headed here for a long week fo idleness, sitting at our kitchen table waiting for her next meal. The good news is, if I am feeling better, she will drive me from the house and I will get a ton of work done outside. I suppose it's all my fault. A) she's my mother. B) I was horny the night we concieved our second set of twins, whose fifth birthday she has come out for.
I think the decision, hard though it is to make (and even harder to execute because my former employers are people who get what they want whether they pay for it or not, prefereably not. . . .) is to say that I cannot come to their aid at the moment. I have too many commitments to break (the Wife's job, three upcoming cooking jobs of mine, and my 5 Lovelies).   Thanks for helping me come to it. . . .

posted by: ChefNeal at April 19, 2005 06:44 | link | comments |
work, life, back pain