Signs of Hope

Last Thursday, on my way into school, I came across a very unique sight: a man dressed in black pants, nice work shoes, a collared shirt, and a red sweater vest, washing his car. It was 8:38 am. My first thought was, what a hopeful thing to do.

I wondered if he had a job interview that day... or maybe a big date... or maybe he was taking his kids to school and was trying to impress the other dads with his sparkley black Beamer... maybe he was about to pick his girlfriend and ask her to marry him... maybe it was a birthday present for his 16 year old son... maybe he's a secret agent and just finished repainting the car and was washing off the excess (I obviously know nothing about painting cars... or being a secret agent).  Anyway, my imagination took off, writing the first few lines of a whole host of potential stories for this gentleman. As I walked, I realized the common theme among them being hope.

Inspired by the go-get-'em attitude I imagined for Mr. Red Sweater Vest, I decided to spend the next two days looking for signs of hope.

As a scientist, I had to first figure out exactly what it was that I was looking for, ie: what is the definition of hope, so I will know it when I see it. So I went to the Magical Interwebs (dictionary.com). Interestingly, hope is both a noun and a verb, and as I chose to use it, 'hopeful' an adjective, hopefully, an adverb. It's kind of like 'smurfy' for those of us who are children of the 80's (or parents of children of the 80's). That, in and of itself, was a nice, albeit tangential, metaphor for what I was looking for- hope is defined many different ways and takes on many different forms, depending on what you are looking for and how you want to use it.

Thursday, looking for signs of hope was really easy. It was a beautiful day outside. I had a good meeting with my supervisors. We put together an outline for the next few weeks, and promised to meet again. This was a hopeful activity, according to my definition- it showed that they are 'looking forward to with desire and reasonable confidence' (definition 1 of hope as a verb).  As I was walking home from work I passed the construction site of the new library the University is building- definitely a sign of hope. I walked past a local middle school and there were guys outside painting lines on a soggy field in the shape of a small running track- sign of hope. I ran into Mike and Opie on the way to the park, Opie about jumping out of his skin with hopefulness- petmeletsgototheparkandjumpinpuddlesiloveyoucanweeatpetmeiloveyou. To him, we are the 'person or thing in which expectations are centered' (definition 2 of hope as a noun). Later over dinner, Mike and I spoke of the future, as we often do, another implicit sign of hope. What will happen when we are done here, what do you want to do next, what's recorded on the DVR... I can go on, but I won't- suffice it to say, there were lots of signs of hope on Thursday.

Friday was not as pretty outside. It was fine, not warm or cold, gray, a bit of rain on and off. As I walked into school, I didn't see Mr. Red Sweater Vest. It was drizzling the entire walk, keeping my face and jacket covered with a nice sheen of damp. The things that I had seen as hopeful the day before now seemed a bit forlorn. They didn't look hopeful... they actually looked a bit... apathetic. They weren't filled with potential energy any more. They were stagnate. The field, so hopefully painted the day before, was submerged in a puddle-lake at one end. It seemed to say, yeah, thought you could do something with this. That was dumb. The huge crane at the building site was still, looking like it couldn't be bothered to move. It had exhausted itself with all its efforts of the previous day. Silly girl, thinking that there were symbols of hope all around. Really? I'm just a crane. A crappy, rusting, lopsided crane. When I got to work, everyone seemed to be stuck. It wasn't one of those excited Fridays were everyone counts down the minutes until 5, then goes for a beer after. It was a Friday when people come and go, with their heads down, trying to make sure no one notices when they duck out at 2.  I remembered my promise to find hope, thought of Mr. Red Sweater Vest, and it occurred to me that he could've been a cab driver, just coming off the late shift. What a difference a day makes.

It made me realize how much power I have over my outlook. When I actively engaged in looking for hope, I saw things that looked like hope. Perhaps it was a self-fulfilling prophecy.  When I kept my mind and eyes open, looking for the positive, I saw it. When I was a little weaker, waiting for hope to come to me, I didn't find it as readily. In fact, I saw the opposite. I saw mediocrity, satisfaction with the status quo. It really is in your perspective.

Later Friday afternoon, I had to go to a meeting about a new house that Mike and I viewed on Wednesday evening. I was meeting the landlord, trying to make sure she liked me, trusted me, wanted me (as a representative for our family) to live in her house. I felt like I was in middle school again, trying to sit at the cool lunch table. As it turned out, things went great. She was lovely. She liked me. We had tea, and we are now officially friends... maybe not friends, but at least owner and tenant. Talk about hope. It's good. And tomorrow's a new day.

Stovies!

I made a traditional Scottish meal for dinner tonight! Stovies. In honor of this, I will do my best to write the rest of the blog and recipe in Scottish.

Oi!
(hello)

 Fit leich?
(how you doing?)

Nae ta bad. Foos du?
(not too bad. How're you?)

Stovies are a Northeast Scotland tradition. Usually, they're made from the leftovers of the Sunday Roast, using the neeps (parsnips), tatties (potatoes), meat and a wee (a little)  bit of drippings all thrown into one pot. The origins of stovies are said to come from a time when masters would give their servants the left over food from Sunday lunch. They would take this home or to their quarters and make a dish that could last them all week and was easy to cook. This is a warm homey dish for quinies (girls) and loons (boys), wifeys (women) and mannies (men) alike.

Ok, enough Scottish slang. That's hard and I dunna ken (don't know) that I can keep going. 

Ingredients:
For the beef. 
1 lb beef cubed (good scottish beef is recommended)
1/4 cup beef stock
1 cup water
1 cup merlot or other red wine
3 cloves garlic chopped
1/2 onion chopped

Stovies:
Cooked beef
3 large or 6 small potatoes, quartered
1/4-1/2 cup of milk
1/4 tsp rosemary
salt and pepper to taste
1/4 tsp garlic

Roasted beets
4-5 beets roughly chopped into bitesize pieces (Fig 1)
olive oil or butter
salt and pepper to taste
Fig 1: Beet hands. Might be in your best interest to not wear a white shirt while doing this.

I cooked the meat a couple of days ago. You could probably do it all in the same day, though.

1. Sweat the onion and 2 cloves of garlic (chopped) over low heat.
2. Drizzle with olive oil.
3. Once onions are translucent, put the beef in
4. brown the beef- usually between 5 and 10 minutes, depending on the size of the beef.
5. Bring water and stock to a boil in a large stock pot.
6. Dump beef and onion and garlic in.
7. Add merlot
8. add last clove of garlic
9. Simmer for 2-3 hours
10. Boil the potatoes in a large pot of salted water. Drain when tender when pierced with a fork. Return to pot.
11. Pour milk over potatoes, smash with a fork- should NOT be smooth, remain chunkey.
12. Take meat and onion mixture (which should be amazingly tender now) and put into frying pan, along with some of the merlot broth (to taste).
13. Add potatoes. Over medium heat, heat through and mix together. Add rosemary, garlic, salt and pepper to taste.

For the beets:
Preheat oven at 350. At step 10 above, put chopped beets into a bowl. Drizzle olive oil or melted over beets. Sprinkle generously with salt, and not so generously with pepper, and mix it all around. Wrap in aluminum foil packet. Bake for 45-60 minutes.

Traditionally, stovies are served with piping hot with oatcakes, beetroot and skirlie (which is like oatmeal stuffing) but as Mike said, 'if you ate that, you'd sink to the bottom of the ocean'. So, instead, we had broccoli (Figure 2).
  

Fig. 2: Dinner! Looks gross- a bit like 

German textbook food- but is tasty!!

Cheers!

The Subconscious Shelf

I just read on the New Yorker that they are doing a thing where you send them a picture of your bookshelf and they analyse you. I think this is genius. Unfortunately, we only have less than a quarter of our books here, but we've managed to adopt a few good books in need of a home. I invite you to analyse our book selection.

I am going to go ahead and give it a go, you know, being a psychologist and all. This bookshelf, although scant, shows that the people in this house have many assorted interests. A Rosetta Stone program, along side some academic books on human error (is To Err Is Human upside down?)- this says there are people in the house that like to learn. Complemented by a few 'self helpy' books by Eckhart Tolle- this indicates an some deep seeded need to 'find ones self', so obviously the owners are in their late 20's. Mixed in with some fiction, some travel books and a german dictionary, and finally a few political books, both historical (American Lion) and current (Dreams of My Father), all of which is an indication that these people like to dream big. The shelf is a mess, crowded with electrical equipment, and various soccer scarves claiming support. The books are laid sideways, indicating that the shelf is not ideal for the books it holds. Nor, apparently, is it big enough. There's more clutter on the top- this indicates that these people really aren't organized. And apparently don't seem to care. Go ahead, give it a go. It's kinda funny how well this actually kind of covers it.

Under normal circumstances, we have a large bookshelf that goes in our bedroom, filled with various books- mostly novels and fiction- mostly Mike's- along with yearbooks and baby books stacked at the bottom (to anchor the shelf... it's not fantastic, it's from Ikea. I think it was called Smmrgdderf). We strategically placed some knick-nacks and photos on the shelf to make it more friendly looking. We also have a second small bookshelf that goes in the office or guest room that has both of our school books, along with various paper products (envelopes, bills, fancy paper, etc). We also put some books on the coffee table, and on the shelves under the side tables in the living room. These are the 'smarty-pants books' to make us look cultured. I think we had a photo book of the graves of famous rock stars along side GQ's Red Book of Style... and probably a Victoria's Secret. Arty. Finally, some books end up in a mini-library on our respective bedside tables... these are the trusty dog-eared bunch... (well, mine are dog-eared. Mike's are not... apparently it 'messes up the books'. I say it gives them character. This is a psychological quagmire that we will deal with later.)

This brings us to the books that most frequently ended up in the coveted 'bedside table' position. For me, the top books are 'The Tipping Point' which I have read at least 5 times, 'Eat Pray Love', 'Charlotte's Web' the first 'big-girl' (ie: chapter) book I ever read, any 'Harry Potter', some fiction-of-the-moment (The Reader or something like that) and usually a non-fiction by David McCullough or something my dad told me I needed to read. For Mike, these books are 'Ender's Game' (amazing book), 'Dune', 'The Godfather' (also amazing), 'Jurassic Park', and 'The Hunt for Red October'. Obviously, Mike is a fiction man. One of my favorite times of the day is when I get into bed, grab the book off the beside table, crack it open and start to read. Opie usually lays with his head on my tummy and it is a very peaceful time.

Thanks, New Yorker- that was a great idea.