The Art of Adaptation

It's my last day in last day in this building today. This means it was also my last commute. People in the office keep telling me how lucky I am that my house is only ten minutes from the new building. I agree, to some extent although I do prefer to think of it as strategic planning, rather than luck.

Also, I'm actually no longer opposed to a commute. I was when I first moved back to Ohio because commuting in Los Angeles is enough to kill the joy of driving for anyone. Seriously, the mere fifteen miles of distance from my apartment to my job could take up to an hour and a half on a bad days. Thus, moving back and living in the same town as where I worked was quite a novelty. Then I moved and the office didn't and I was back to a commute.

Yet, this time, the commute was steady. It rarely differs in time at all. It's a straight 45 minute shot and it's about 26 miles from home to this office. That's not a bad drive. Also, it's pretty. Part of the drive is an interstate. Then my exit takes me to a two lane highway that eventually slims down to a one lane highway. It's primarily rural so, especially at this time of year, the scenery is beautiful with all the trees, leaves, greenness and quiet.

Since I've been listening to audiobooks, the commute is something I almost look forward to because it's like my own private time to 'read' and relax.

That time has reached its end for now. I don't mind because for someone who complains about getting out of my warm cocoon of a bed as frequently as I do in this blog, a ten minute commute is rather a luxury.

I think, more than anything, it proves you can get used to anything if you do it enough. I think that's why they call it adaptation. We can all adapt, even when we least expect it. For example, my aversion to a commute has gently become an enjoyment. I think there are a lot of things in life like that, when you stop to think about it.

It's like cooking, for me. Until recent years, I viewed cooking as something that was necessary to do unless I wanted to eat out all the time. I never counted microwaving as cooking. Yet my cooking was basic, usually involving something pre-packaged. Then, slowly, thanks to Iron Chef America, I began to be interested in food. Now, I cook. I get excited about kitchen gadgets and I love to try new recipes. I've even implemented an 'unusual vegetable of the week' routine. Generally, I go to the grocery store or a market and buy something I haven't cooked with much. Then I attempt to find a recipe that incorporates it. Recently, I've tried things such as rapini (broccoli rabe), escarole, swiss chard, fennel, turnips and spaghetti squash. Some of the recipes work out, some don't. Yet it's making me try new recipes and since I adore vegetables, it's a fun way to make something healthy as well as occasionally delicious. I have a great swiss chard recipe, if anyone's interested.

Anyway, my point is, I got used to actually cooking instead of the semblance of such. I started to care about my knives. I started to use prep bowls and zesters. I think now I've finally reached the point where I'm almost snobbish. Take garlic for example: I used to buy those jars of minced garlic. It was still fairly fresh and it was easy to measure. Then, I bought a fresh garlic and learned how to push down on it gently with my knife to make it easy to peel. Then I began to chop it myself. Now, I can't use any other type of garlic. I still have a little jar of the minced but even when I'm in a hurry, I end up chopping my own. I love the way my fingers smell afterward. I love the slight stickiness it leaves on my fingers. It just feels wonderful to make a dish in which everything is fresh.

Yet, if I'd have written this a year and a half ago, I would have thought I was out of my mind. At that time, I still used garlic powder as a substitute. I thought there was no difference between fresh herbs and those dried ones.

I've come a long way. Cooking has become part of my life. I adapted.

So, you see, I think it's about perspective. My commute once seemed an evil prospect. Now I'm saying goodbye to it, I'm a little sad. I liked that time to decompress after work. It was a good time to call my mother and let a little steam off about my workday. I can still do that stuff but I'm going to have to find a new way to do it. Perhaps I can finally start exercising again because I'll have extra time in the evening.

I'm not fond of exercising, particularly in the winter. It's hard to come home when it's cold outside, peel off my layers of warmth and then strip down to change into workout clothes when all I really want to do is ladle out a bowl of beef stew and sit in front of the TV. Yet, if I do it enough, perhaps I'll get used to exercising again. After all, as I've said, it's really just a matter of perspective. If I start to like it, maybe I'll keep it up. I just have to adapt to the idea, that's all.

But, for today, I have one more commute left: The commute home.

I don't think that's such a bad thing though, do you?

Happy Friday and have a good weekend!

Paranoia in the Rearview Window

It's a cold and wet day outside the window where I sit today. It's the kind of cold that doesn't measure on a thermometer, a damp, chill that sinks into your bones and sits there. Even though it's warmer than it has been, the temperature reading doesn't mean much. It's in the wet rain that mists the air making things wet but falling so finely, it's almost invisible.

I think I've been complaining a lot lately. Whether it's a book that irritated me (yes, I'm talking to you, Story of Edgar Sawtelle), a movie or just the general blahness that hits in the deep winter months, I feel like I've been too negative.

I'm going to try to break out of that pattern. I actually did some writing last night. That was a good feeling. I know, I write on this blog every week day so, technically, I do write almost every day. Yet the type of writing I do in the evenings is different, it's fictional. It's much easier to babble about the world around me than make up something somedays.

It's Wednesday. That means it's closer to Friday and, if everything works out, I will have a three day weekend. Keep your fingers crossed that the title to my car arrives at the DMV this week. I'm starting to feel a little homebound. I drive to work from my home and back. Last weekend, I was daring and went a little further. Yet I keep alert to the possibility that at any moment a police car could pull behind me and see my license plates are technically expired.

So far, I'm doing ok with that. I'm ultra paranoid though. I have this picture in my head of a police car getting behind me and then I panic and suddenly turn off, my tires squealing as I do so. Then I get followed by the police and they pull me over and take my car away. Naturally, I think if I don't do anything ultra-obvious like, say, flee from the police in a dramatic manner, I might be ok. I can actually be quite rational in these situations.

However, if all goes as planned, I won't have to worry as of Friday afternoon. I will actually be able to drive proudly though I will be extremely sad to give up my California license plate. It's my mark of pride at the moment, my excuse for driving like a snail on snow, if snails drove, of course. It's my sign that yes, I'm not from around here, I'm a newcomer, be nice to me. Of course, at the moment, it's an enormous flashing beacon to police. It doesn't help that the expiration date of my plates isn't tiny like on the Ohio plates that I see every day. Instead, the year and month are on two rather large stickers, visible with 20/20 vision from the car behind me. I used to stare at those stickers a lot when I lived in L.A. and got stuck on the 10 freeway or the 101 as was the case when I moved there.

My first few years in L.A. were spent commuting from "The Valley" as it's known. I used to take the 101 and drive by the Hollywood sign daily, the Capital records building, the sights that look so glamourous in photos but border on seedy in real life. Then when I moved, I took the 1o freeway from a different valley. This commute was more boring but I had to pay more attention because the freeway split three times before I made it to my destination. Only a couple of times did I forget to split, finding my way into parts unknown and quickly turning around in case I got more lost.

Nowadays, my commute is easier. I hop in my car, turn left twice, turn right once and then turn into my parking lot. I'm always shocked that not only is it a quick trip but there's always parking spaces and I don't have to pay for them. I used to have to pay monthly in L.A. for the privilege of parking my car to go to work. These are some of the things I do not miss about Los Angeles.

Though there are some things I miss; I miss the heavy rains of February, the streets flooding with swell of the rain. I miss my friends, the quick trips to a movie where we'd make a dinner out of a hot dog and popcorn. I miss the fact that on any day, every movie currently in release is playing in the city somewhere. I miss the ocean and the trips to the English tea room I'd take with a friend after going to the Santa Monica pier.

Yet I'm not unhappy to be here. Now I have the chance of rain every day, not just during the 'rainy season'. I have my snow and the newness of the world it creates. I have my family, just a short trip away (unless the plates on my car are expired like...now) and I have a new life, one that's just begun. The discoveries I make every day are fun, from seeing a deer in the field behind my balcony to exploring a six-acre grocery store that keeps me in British goods without having to fly to the U.K.

I'm happy where I am but I'm happy where I've been. I'm curious where the road ahead lies.

Just as long as when I look in my rearview mirror, there aren't any police.

Happy Wednesday.

Big News in a Small Town...

I've realized why I blog about snow so much. Ok, so yes, I love snow and enjoy putting lyrical odes out into the blogosphere. However, I've also realized that I live in a small town in Ohio and, when it snows, that's the main event.

Take for example, yesterday. Our brilliant weather forecasters reported that we would get possibly one to three inches in the next 24 hours. So, when it started blizzarding down around 11 a.m., we were a little surprised. More surprised were we when the snow did not stop. By the time I left work at 5 p.m., we'd had at least 6 inches, it seemed. Needless to say, driving home...not so fun.

The nice thing is that my coworker and I live in the same apartment complex so we followed each other home in case we got stuck. You see, there is this major hill just down the road from our complex. It's a roller coaster-type hill, all the way down then all the way up. Since the snow was coming down so hard, we were afraid that the hill would be shut off as sometimes happens in bad weather. Fortunately, it wasn't closed and they'd done a great job of clearing it so that it was mostly slushy. The rest of the trip home....not so good.

Even parking the car in this heavy snow is nuts because it was blowing and driving through a drift to find the approximate of a parking space can be a challenge. Fortunately, I purchased Digger, my handy dandy snow shovel. He was very useful this morning. I managed to plow a path behind my car. And yes, I actually enjoyed that.

What I didn't enjoy was, once more, my stray was waiting to ask for a ride. Because I find it hard to be mean, I told him I would but I'm really, really hoping he gets his car fixed soon because he's getting in the way of my 'me-time'. I like to drive to work in the mornings and slowly wake up. I don't mean wake up in the sense that I'm driving down the road, fast asleep because that would be both scary and daft.

No, I mean that I'm awake when I drive but I like to let the day slowly approach me as I'm making my way to the office, not come at me in a rush. I listen to a CD and use my ten minute commute as a wake-up meditation of sorts. Well, unless some moron cuts me off and then I wake up quickly enough to think of many a crude insult.

This morning, I had company on my commute. The roads weren't too terrible this morning; I salute the snow plows who must have been at it all night. Yet my stray is a chatter which is something I prefer not to deal with until later in the morning. He lived in a city before and is horrified that, so far, I haven't felt the need to go into Cincinnati, the nearest city to us. The truth is...I haven't. I love the things that a city offers: Ethnicity, Arts, Culture...all that. Yet, living in L.A. for eight years gave me plenty of it and I think it's ok to take a break for a while and let the peace of this small town wash over me. Eventually I'll have the urge for some Vietnamese food or something else that's hard to find in the little towns near me but in the meantime, I'm loving the simplicity of a place in which a heavy snowfall is the big news.

It also helps that I'm still enamoured with snow and, even in spite of the complications it causes, am quite happy to watch it fall from the safety of my apartment.

Happy Wednesday.