Sometimes I Amaze...

...Even Myself

Somehow, I managed to relax today and in the afternoon decided to cook. It has been a while since I last had pizza, so that is what I began to crave. I have made my own bread for the last, I guess eight years now, so a pizza crust is nothing, but the topping can be a little tricky. I searched the kitchen and decided I wanted a spinich pizza which worked because I had frozen spinich in the freezer and all the fresh basil and oregano and rosemary growing in the garden. I have enough of the herbs growing at this point that I could have had a purely herb pizza if I wanted. Basil grows like crazy in the right soil and environment as does the oregano. The rosemary is practically a native plant around here - it is fantastic for the xeroscaping in the dry central Texas rocky soil. Also as people in the suburbs know very well - deer don't eat rosemary.

After chopping and mixing for a little while - with some added fresh onion and garlic and then the parmesan cheese grated and mixed in, the aromas began to take over the kitchen and I was not certain I would make it to the actual baking of the pizza.

By the time the topping was complete, the dough was ready to be worked into pizza shape. I had preheated the stone, so the dough would start rising as soon as I put it down and I could form a nice bowl to hold the sauce and melting cheeses. It worked beautifully and soon the nice round crust was piled with fragrant herbs, cheeses, and spinich.

After rising another thirty minutes it was ready to bake and that just made the anticipation worse as I could smell every bit of it's goodness fill the house. About the time it was done, I turned on the broiler and set the pizza under it for the last few minutes

I LOOK LIKE THAT????

I think it is is time to find a good cosmetic surgeon. I tried three different photos before I went with this one and none of the three ever brought up Lance Armstrong, and Lance is the guy I'm always being told I look like. I guess you have to be in Austin to truly appreciate that.

I just know I'm going to be googling some of these names - especially Mr. Redondo!

Reason # 2 W hy I Love Austin...

God loves live music!

He really must. Tonight on day three of the Austin City Limits Music Festival, thunderstorms were building to the west as a hurricane which hit the west coast of Mexcio and a cold front were merging and stirring up all kinds of fun.

As we watched the clouds approach it started to lightning to the east of us. Then it started to lightning to the west of us. But it never started to lightning over us and with only one pause for a downpour, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers showed why they were the headliners and closing act for ACL Fest. #5.

A Sermon to Ponder

Two months ago my pastor preached a sermon about the rejection of Jesus as the Christ in his home town. The people there could not see beyond the man they watched grow up. They could only see him as "the carpenter."

And that made me ask the question - "Did Jesus ever build a wobbly table for someone?" If He cut a board the wrong length, did He just say, "Fit!" and everything was good.

Today the lesson looked at a passage of scripture where Jesus responded with racist terms to a gentile woman who came to Him to heal her daughter. Perhaps, the response was to test the woman's faith. Perhaps the response was Jesus's humanity showing through His divinity. Whatever the interpretation of the response, it leads to an examination of one's personal Christology. Because the Bible teaches that Jesus was both man and God, there is the possibility that as a person, Christ was influenced by the society around him.

And that has had me pondering the question: if Christ, as a man, could be influenced by the society around Him, how much more so are we?

As an educator, though I am no longer at the campus level, I constantly consider the effect the decisions I make has on the staff and students of the 29 campuses I with which I work. When I make a decision, it creates a certain response from the people who work on the campus which leads to a reaction by the students.

At the campus level a certain environment develops. In some ways, each campus has it's own culture which evolves over time. Through systems theory, one can understand how changes take place and that the influence of certain key people can determine the entire climate that surrounds a place, just like the gravity of a celestial body determines the atmosphere which surrounds its mass.

I would be deluding myself to think that every move I made affected the effectiveness of each campus, but then again, with systems theory: a butterfly flaps its wings in a rain forest and a hurricane strikes the Caribbean. Given that understanding, I do consider the ramifications of all my actions on the 40,000 students.

No wonder I suck at relaxing.

I SUCK...

...at relaxing.

I took a vacation day to have a four day weekend, but by noon, I was frantically worrying about the meeting I have scheduled for tomorrow morning. I worried so much, I was getting sick to my stomach.

I tried taking a bath and decided I would scoop out the water into a bucket to water some of the plants in my garden (surely the phosphates in the soap would be good for them) but then it started raining.

I have been gone for three days and my dogs didn't make too much of a mess. I was very proud of them. Today, for some reason, two of them pooped on the carpet.

I thank you for your kind attention to my whining. I'll go work on my powerpoint for the training I'm doing Friday.

A Day Off

Ahhhhh.....so nice to have a day off.

I have a hard time relaxing - I've already made a list of things to do. I'm resisting. We'll see how it goes.

Up With People!

That past vestage of wholesomeness and happiness is back and driving badly in front of me.

I had not thought about Up With People in nearly two decades since they came through the college town where I was living and going to school. Those of us who were happy enough without listening to inspirational people-friendly songs made much fun of the happy pretty people who were clearly chosen for looks rather than talent (which was confirmed when I googled them and read some articles this morning). The entire event had something of a circus atmosphere with some (happy pretty) classmates auditioning for and leaving town on the bus.

We never found the happy pretty people they left behind to make room. Maybe they were not all that happy when they figured out where they had been left.

Yesterday morning, a REALLY BAD driver was annoying all the traffic around me as I was heading to work. I could not quite figure out what it was about the obviously perky fifty-something faux blonde driving an oversized Mercedes that annoyed me to the pit of my stomach beyond the fact that her driving was slowing everyone down. There was also something bizarre about a perky, fifty-something faux blonde being that far over on the east side of town.

Finally it was my turn to be the car directly behind her and I could see that she had one of those custom license plate holders and aross the top it said, "Alumni." It took a couple blocks before I could finally read the smaller print at the bottom of the holder, "Up With People."

No wonder a perky, fifty-something faux blonde driving an oversided Mercedes was on the east side of Austin: she was on her way to cure poverty with happiness.

The Reward of a Job...

...well done is supposed hold its own satisfaction. I suppose that holds some truth, although, I'm not certain it holds any kind of certainty. I've worked my butt off for the last few months and it has not all led to what I expected. Some of it, in fact, has been so frustrating that the dream I had last night was so real, I'm wondering if my calling is not to change jobs and go back to teaching.

I do miss the classroom, but despite the frustrations of my current position, I have to say that more than the satisfaction of a job well done is a life well lived. Today I had my quarterly doctor's visit and for the second time, after an incredibly stressful period, rather than the stress taking a toll on my body, my bloodwork came back better than before.

Sadly, to the converse, when I've been relaxed and comfortable, my blood tests have not been so good.

It is an ironic pick your poison: do I want to go by a heart attack or HIV?

With a heart attack it would be fast, but I worry if my co-workers could find all my notes to finish the projects I'm working on (hint- check the floor of my home office). Yes, even in death, I think I would worry about the ease with which my replacement could follow me.

Thanks to the advancement in medicines, HIV would likely be slow to progress. My major fear is that it does make that blood/brain leap and I begin to experience AIDS Related Dementia. I have not found the appropriate accomplice for assisted suicide, but I would have a diagnosis as AIDS Related Dementia as a criterion for someone assisting me.

The other fear is that I waste away slowly and leave an ugly corpse, but that's just vanity, and ego is no excuse for assisted suicide.

So in the meantime...

I keep working on the stress-filled life well lived.

Under Pressure

The temperature outside today nearly matched the temperature under my collar this afternoon. Depending on which weather report one checked, Austin reached 103 degrees today. I knew my day was booked with meetings and had carefully planned my day to be prepared for them. I had not carefully planned for the meeting location to change after the meeting originally was scheduled to begin.

Flexibility - always good.

That four hour meeting today was, in part, to provide information for my portion of a grant proposal. It was a very productive meeting and I left confident I would easily be able to write a very good piece and fit it within my length constraints.

I was just down the street when my boss's boss's boss calls my cell to inform me that the piece was due thirty minutes previously instead of in two days as I thought, and that I only had one-half page in which to fully cover my topic. Because the office "liked" me they were giving me another half hour to write the piece.

I was in my car.

I was in rush hour traffic.

I had a three page draft.

I had a thirty minute deadline.

My gas gauge was showing empty.

First things first. I stopped to get gas.

The radio reported over a dozen accidents being worked at the time. I'm really glad I had turned my satellite radio off and was listening to NPR's All Things Considered at the time. Otherwise, I would have been stopped in two diffrent traffic jams. Fortunately I was able to negotiate my way around the traffic tie-ups and make it home rather quickly.

Fifteen minutes later I called the grant office and my boss's boss's boss to report that I had completed and submitted the half page. There are two stylistic changes I would like to make after re-reading it an hour later, but other than that, all I can say is, "Damn! I'm good!"

Weirdly Good Mood

I think it's now safe to say I have a boyfriend. After the evening I just had, I think it means we are together.

I came home and sent the following email - incredibly uncharacteristic of me....

A while back I was watching one of those artsy - craftsy shows where they demonstrated a birthday calendar where the dates were not listed in a weekly order, but rather they were generic by the month so it didn't matter what year it was. The idea was that you could put people's names by the date and have a monthly reminder of who's birthday was when.

I thought that was just a stupid idea when I could create a spreadsheet on the computer much more efficiently, so...

...I created a spreadsheet.

Now, I just need important birthdays (and if you are getting this, you are important!!!). If your children call me uncle, or will when they can talk, please include their birthdays as well (providing they have been born -- the two {at least} of you know who I'm talking about). You can also include spouse/partner's names and birthdays as well.

I'm not promising a gift, but it may help me remember to send one of those Internet cards (as long as they stay free).

Happy Birthday Everyone!

Check out my blog sometime: http://rustysbalcony.blogspot.com (*disclaimer - don't read it if you don't already know that I'm gay.)

I think everyone on the list except one already knew I was gay. I wanted to include some kind of "oops" line at the end, but that would have just blown the joke.

I already have two dates that have two birthdays and one double birthday/anniversary on my calendar. I can't wait to see just how many of my friends are Libras like me.