Chiken Cacciatore Redux

Or maybe it is chicken cacciatore echo ... in any case it was pointed out to me that I misspelled chicken cacciatore in my earlier post. I grabbed it off the webthen and I did so again, so ... it may still be misspelled, no trusting the web for spelling accuracy. In any case I think folks got the intent ... oh yeah, tonite was leftovers of the chicken cacciatore with a salad and a merlot blend (The Jack) from Walla Walla. Not as good as the first night, but still a solid dinner.

Mary asked me "What was the most exciting thing you did today?" Answer, I took the 30 2x4 cedar boards from the garage and I laid them out in the sunshine. We had a beautiful October day today, mid-60s here in Federal Way. I have been "aging" the wood in the garage with plans to prefinish it in a week or 2 and then with a contractor friend upgrade our front porch. Last year we put in a real centerpiece front door and it is past time to improve the deck to match the quality of the door. We (I) hemmed and hahhed on the choice of deck, synthetic or cedar and in the end opted for cedar cause I just am not an affeciando of the synthetic deck products. Anyway, it is hard to find great cedar these days, too much sapwood in what is available, but that said we found some pretty good wood and will have a great deck when we are done. This is a pic of "the door" before the new deck, oh yeah and after the new paint job. I will add the new deck in a later blog.

More later ...

Chicken Catchatori

I am currently on notice from my job at Weyerhaeuser. That means I have been given my 60 days notice and during this time I am able to work with provided outplacement services to find new work. This has been fairly rigorous, but much less so than my prior job. I have updated my resume (several times), attended workshops (mostly by phone) and I am learning about all the various ways to distribute resumes and look for work through job boards, other company websites, networking, LinkedIn and on and on. So far I have kept my search to Weyerhaeuser and with luck and a killer resume I will find a great job here. And because I do not currently have a daily commitment in my Weyerhaeuser office I have been mostly working from home, with occasional trips into the "real" office.

I know this work arrangement has some longterm downsides, at some point the paychecks will stop, but with Mary working fulltime this fall it has some advantages. It really has been nice to change routines and to stop travelling for now. Here at home I have taken over primary responsibility for most meals. For a long time now, I have been the lead on preparing breakfast, each of us would do our own lunches and then Mary would do dinners. Well this fall I have taken over the majority of the dinners too and am enjoying cooking dinners again. Last night - Friday - I prepared Chicken Catchatori and if I do say so myself it was great. We had it with a Rigatoni (pasta) and a Sangiovese/Cabernet blend wine from eastern Washington.

Today, Mary has been grading papers and I have done some prep work for a deck project we are doing. I started to replace a light switch in the hall, but when I got into it I realized I was dealing with a 4-way switch and I had bought a 3-way. Now I have a good excuse to go get the right switch at Ace Hardware and then to drop into Metropolitan Market (next door) for the Spainish wine tasting. After that will come home and watch the VOLUNTEERS vs Alabama and the World Series with Jamie Moyer starting for the Phillies. I am more of a Tampa fan this year, but tonight I will be pulling for Jamie to win. Sunday I will get back to the 4-way switch.

About Braided Rivers

Braided rivers is a theme that got into my head when we went to Alaska. It was the first time I heard the terminology. In case you don't know these are the rivers flowing from the glaciers ... the new rivers flowing through glacial silt with ever changing channels. One stream of water will form with others and then be redivided and reformed again and again. In Alaska they flow like this to the sea. I also noted on the same trip how our paths would touch and then separate only to retouch other travellers. On this trip braided rivers flowing from Denali became a metaphor for life. This is my first posting .... more to come.