I call my nephew sir.

I call my nephew sir. I think I picked the habit up from my sister. Wherever it comes from, it's very odd to hear an adult calling a very small boy sir. When playing video games together I will occasionally want to convince him to do something that moves the game forward in a particular way. "Please sir" I will say as my brothers laugh at me and my nephew says "no" from his perch on my lap.

The year of the dog is, if my nephew is anything to go by, the best year for boys. It involves a working knowledge of all types of swords: pirate, ninja and knight. It also involves a general sweetness of character and a tendency to sing "Yo Ho Yo Ho. A piwate's wife fow me!" This has lead to a tendency in his aunt to buy things. Lots of things. Things like small knights costumes complete with a cloak with a matching crest and a fairly impressive matching foam sword. The very nice toy store next to my very nice coffee shop knows it's mark well because while I walked out of there the first time with only the costume and a small toy dragon I returned in less than a week for the cloak and sword. It is possible that an eighth sword is not actually necessary for the well being of a small boy, but it seems to be a requirement for the aunt. The aunt may in fact go back and get another one. After all, I'll need something to use in sword fights. Using a ninja sword when fighting a medieval knight would just seem wrong.

The Bad Kind of Multitasking

My first car, a horrible 1980 diesel VW rabbit, had a secret power that almost made it worth keeping as long as I did. It could emit a huge cloud of smoke from the exhaust pipe upon command. The command was hitting the gas pedal with anything approaching firmness. The cloud created when going up a steep hill was enough to clear traffic behind me for up to a half a mile. The true genius of this particular feature was that it is so very hard to honk at the idiot behind you to any real result and sometimes you really need to get their attention.

I first discovered this when stuck in traffic going around an accident and that moron in the hideously expensive vehicle riding up your tail pipe while looking out the side window and talking on his phone that we've all run into was inches from my bumper. In retrospect letting him hit my car would probably have saved me thousands in the never ending repair bills it took to keep that nightmare of a car running as it wouldn't have taken much to total it. At the time however that didn't occur to me. Instead, in panic as he came increasingly closer to my rear bumper while looking ninety degrees to the left out his open window, I depressed the clutch and hit the gas hard. Not only did he back off immediately, but he rolled his window up and started looking forward as he drove. I do not miss that car, but I occasionally wish I could have that feature installed on whatever car I'm currently driving.

We've all seen, and sometimes even been that idiot on the road who is texting while driving. We've also seen that moron in the hideously expensive vehicle riding up your tail pipe while looking out the side window and talking on his phone in stop and go traffic. But rarely do you see someone reading while driving. I had once heard of this phenomena. When I was a child my father and uncle worked with a woman who did just that. In the stop and go morning traffic through L.A. my uncle would see her driving eyes up, eyes down, eyes up, eyes down through the slow two hour commute. I always felt it probably explained the high number of accidents in that area, but as she was never in any of them I had no proof. I did however feel she was unique in this bizarre behavior. That is until yesterday morning.

Yesterday morning on my drive into the office I found myself once again wishing for that special feature to be added to my car as I looked at my rear view mirror and saw behind me, eyes up, eyes down, eyes up, eyes down while at a stop light. Reading while driving always seems like a bad idea, at least to those in the cars around you, but when audio books are so readily available it also seems so entirely unneeded. When the light turned I put as much distance between what could only be the offspring of my father's former coworker and myself. Still her car was right behind me all the way to work and even to my building. I ran up the stairs from the parking garage to the lobby elevator and just as the doors were closing my multitasking co-commuter slipped into the elevator. Slightly flustered she noticed that her top was inside out. Who could help but think, reading while dressing? It was all I could do not to ask what the book was. Clearly it was captivating.

Chinese New Year

I spent the weekend and many of my free hours last week decorating and preparing for Chinese New Year. This is not a normal event for me but my niece was learning about Chinese New Year and was excited about the idea of actually observing it, at least in part. So after finding a place where we could watch the Lion Dance, I decorated. I hung lights and made red signs with gold embossed Chinese characters for luck and happiness and whatever else I could find in rubber stamp form. I even replaced the lamp shade with a red Chinese lantern and hung a paper dragon from the ceiling. There were dumplings to steam, unusual candies to eat, boxes to paint red and gold and a video game to play. The video game had nothing to do with Chinese new year, but video games are always good.

The reality is that what I was really doing, while putting hours into preparing one slightly educational experience for two small children, was not thinking about work. Actively and pointedly NOT thinking about work.

Not thinking about being unable to track down data points needed for a major speech by a major player. Not thinking that contracting leaves you as a target for those who wish to pass the blame or need to unload on someone where it wont come back at them. Not thinking about being shoved 4 in an office made for 1. Not thinking about the fragmented and fungible nature of contracting where you never get to see anything through to fruition or have time to fully understand and invest in project. But most of all not thinking about how I just cannot seem to do it anymore. My last functional neuron seems to have stood up and walked away in disgust. Clearly it feels that if I cannot learn enough not to get myself into these positions there is no point in trying.

Ooooooooooooh! So that's what that me...

It is disturbing how much I can realize on my own but not actually process fully without external intervention. I'm sure it's a horrifying defect on my part. For years I was aware that having returned to the US as a child to a set of family that was not entirely impressed with my five year old self had an effect on me. As a child there are some things that are a given, one of them being that your family loves you completely. So if your grandmother, ever so subtly, finds you tedious and unattractive, clearly taking after the wrong side of the family and ascribing malice to accident, instead of dismissing it as one would as an adult you try harder. And when that doesn't work perhaps you wind up taking it on in a larger way than is entirely appropriate, because if your grandmother doesn't think you're pretty or smart and you get the sense that you're only there on sufferance well perhaps that's true. True enough so that when meeting relatives of the same generation on the other side of the family who tell you you're beautiful and delightful, you kind of wonder why they're lying to you. As an adult you can have the realization that, huh, yeah that did have an influence on my view of myself and the world and you might think that this would start shifting the view, but not so much.

Oddly I've often learned best from other people’s experiences. Watching something happen involves a level of perspective that actually experiencing things lacks. Experience personalizes things that often shouldn't be personalized. Which is why watching my lovely and precocious niece as she tried harder and harder to engage my grandmother and gain her approval (a situation she will never have to find herself in again) something started to come together that had never managed to surface before; something that required perspective rather than personalization. Gradually as the weeks passed I'd look in the mirror and not dislike what I saw. It began to have broader implications. Suddenly things that had previously been confusing started to make sense. More I began to recognize meaning in things that had previously been meaningless. Specifically interest that would previously have been dismissed without conscious recognition.

The problem with this kind of realization is that if you think about it too much it becomes retroactive and conversations past suddenly have an entirely new meaning. One that leaves you feeling shockingly naive. But really it's something best not thought of. Realizing just how differently you'd have spent your summer holiday when you were 24 had you but known isn't actually worth thinking about... no matter how much you wish you had figured it out then.

Crappy Friday

Any week that begins with two Mondays is simply going to end with a crappy Friday. Friday, that day that can do no wrong, can do wrong on a week with two Mondays. The confusion over whether or not it is actually Thursday frustrates the day until the underlying identity crisis erupts taking out passersby like Vesuvius did the citizens of Pompeii.

It will start with a bang, when something large and expensive will break in some manner that will no doubt require replacement rather than simple repair. But it will not stop there. Oh no. You will discover that despite your best efforts to mitigate damage and the insane workout schedule that probably broke said large and expensive (though clearly badly made) exercise machine, the weeks family inspired eating compromises will set you back at least 2 weeks of dieting. You will then find 2 sliver hairs popping out of the top of your head as though they had every right to be there. Dealing with broken equipment also causes delays to the morning that will leave you running out the door 30 minutes late and without your coffee.

On such a day you will receive mandatory meeting invites for every day of the following week that start a full 30 minutes before the time you barely make it in by as it is. On such a Friday you will discover that the plans you made for Saturday night are actually for Friday as you got your dates confused. On a week with two Mondays, it seems, your ability to count escapes you.

The only hope for you is Friday night… Take control. Get a massage and meet up with friends for dinner and drinks afterwards. Though, on the Friday of a week with two Mondays you probably shouldn’t drink as much as you would want to, given the week behind you. Odds are that on such a Friday night you’d get ticketed for drunk driving.

Only forgivable on a Monday

There is a time and place that is appropriate for all things. Even for really annoying things. Things that normally one just shouldn’t do as the inconvenience to others are too great. This time is that Bermuda Triangle of organization and function we fondly call Monday morning. This is a time when everyone’s day is functioning at a similar level of ‘not’ and being held up by ridiculous and infuriating things that other people do is part of the flow.

These are things that are not acceptable on say a Tuesday morning. And yet, with a casual disregard for the reality that it is not in fact Monday, people do them anyway. Things such as:

· Ordering a “triple half caf mocha… um, no make that a double full caf latte, no actually a single caramel macchiato… hmmm… WAIT!! Actually make that a…” in a busy coffee shop first thing in the morning is only forgivable on a Monday.

· Stopping in the middle of the road in busy traffic causing a line of cars to miss the green light at the intersection ahead for no conceivable reason – or even for a conceivable reason – is only forgivable on a Monday. (There is always, in this situation, a line of alternately confused and infuriated morning commuters trying to see through and around the cars ahead in order to determine if someone has in fact just stopped randomly or if there is some kind of obstruction. By the time this is determined, the opportunity to honk has probably passed, which is additionally infuriating. The desire to then get out of the car and slap the silly woman while stuck at the red light is, while understandable, also only forgivable on a Monday.)

· Running late for morning meetings because some silly woman pulled a Monday morning maneuver on the drive in, is only forgivable on a Monday.

· Laptop batteries dying in the middle of taking notes at the morning meeting (starting 10 minutes into the meeting) because the power chord is still in the car is only forgivable on a Monday.

The promise for a week that starts with two Monday mornings seems dire indeed.

Food Autism

I have been accused of food autism. I’m not entirely sure what that would be if it were an actual condition. Perhaps I’m being accused of savant-ism to a certain degree. I would at least like to pretend however that cooking is not my only skill. There is no need to correct me on this matter if I’m wrong.

The ‘food autism’ emerges regularly in conversations lasting more than a few minutes. It also emerges when I have time to think about food or eat food or in any way interact with food. It was at its strongest in London where an hour underground on the way home thinking about what to make for dinner gave great scope for the process. Arriving home I would announce to whichever roommate was about “I had this idea for a dish on the way home” as though it had never happened before.

That said, I think that there is a basic approach to cooking that people miss and makes the whole experience entirely more successful. Begin by imagining flavors. Ginger, garlic, herbs… anything. How they might combine with each other, in what proportions and what was it that was missing? And keep imagining until the combination that tastes exactly right comes clear. Balance the textures and colors. It all has to work together. And more than texture and color and flavor it is also chemistry. Because the combination of what you put together works and binds together to make an end product that is more than the sum of it's parts. It is never more apparent than with baking, but even an omelet is chemistry. What you add to the egg changes it's consistency while cooking. So pay attention. When substituting one thing for another, make certain it fills all the needs of what is being replaced.

And because what it tastes like is the most important part, always taste it in the last minute of cooking to make sure that it has every bit of flavor that it needs. Because a recipe is fixed but ingredients aren't. Sometimes ingredients are stale, sometimes it's a batch that just has a little less flavor than you're used to.