ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHH.
More on this topic later. Needless to say, things aren’t going as well at the work transition as I said earlier.
This might be a day to take off early and go hiking with the dog. I dare me to do that.
Should I go buy dirt today?
The tomatoes that I bought last month are growing out of their designated containers, and an impasse seems to have been reached: the tomatoes will continue to live if they don’t get moved, but not bear any actual fruit unless I do something about their lack of space.
I have bigger pots ready, but the dirt upon which my house sits is shaly and silty and not suited to grow much of anything. Therefore, supplementation is needed. The problem is is that dirt is not as cheap as dirt is reputed to be, since it is bought under the guise of “potting soil.”
Soil and dirt: completely different things. Soil is studied, graded, named. The term “soil conservation service” points to the esteem soil has, to its need to be protected, enough so that an institution has to be created and named in order to officially do so. There is no comparable dirt protection society, as far as I know.
But I want tomatoes, sooner, rather than later (I foresee, for some reason, tomatoes poking out as soon as I move and am far from them, and not a moment sooner). Therefore, soil it is.
I made stir-fried beef with basil for dinner last night, which was really good, even though it was not basil-y enough, despite the use of an entire cup of torn basil leaves (the basil, unlike the tomatoes, is flourishing to the point of Too Much Basil). It was the first time I’d ever stir-fried beef, and I think I prefer it to chicken: it was quicker to cook, and tastier, much better than the blandness of most chicken breast. I still like tofy better, but out of the two people in this house, only one of us (plus the dog, who, unexpectedly, likes it, too), will eat it without silent, yet obvious, protest.
I supplemented it with a coconut-ginger rice mix that I bought: good, but not as good as I could make. When will I learn?
Anyway,
Stir-Fried Beef with Basil
(Adapted from How to Cook Everything, which everyone should own, seriously)
1 pound or so beef, sliced for stir-fry (I just buy it at the store pre-sliced, since it’s actually pretty cheap to get it that way, and I hate slicing meat)
1 cup of basil leaves, washed, dried, torn into little bits
2 tbsp. peanut oil
1 red onion, sliced
1 red bell pepper, sliced
1 big clove of garlic, minced
2 tbsp soy sauce
zest and juice of one lime
1 tsp sugar
1. About one hour before cooking, combine the beef, basil, and 1 tsp or so of the oil in a bowl. Cover and refrigerate — this lets the flavor of the basil permeate the beef. Combine the soy sauce, lime juice, and sugar in a small bowl. Set aside.
2. In a stir-fry pan, heat the rest of the oil. Add half of the minced garlic and the onion, cook a few minutes. Add the bell pepper, cook until the onion starts to get soft. Remove the vegetables from the pan, onto a plate.
3. Let oil in pan heat up again, add beef-basil mixture. Cook, stirring, until beef begins to lose its redness (this only takes a minute or two). Add the cooked vegetables, and then the soy-lime sauce. Stir thoroughly, serve right away.
Right now is the best time to be at my job, for I have reached the point where I Have Already Quit in My Mind. Stupid crap? Doesn’t bother me, except when it takes me away from idle daydreaming and leaving early to do more fun things. Pressing concerns? There are none: I’m going to be gone in little more than a month!
After five! years at the same job, it is refreshing to be at this point. Even better, the person I’m training to replace me seems to be at least competent. She’s worked for The Employer in the past, so I don’t have to inform her about the vague objectives, incomprehensible instructions, and garden-variety fidgeting that go along with all intra-office communication.
The only thing is that the thing I’m working on is really, really dull: some company somewhere is proposing to drill holes in the ground, in order to dispose of icky water produced from drilling other holes in the ground, and wants to know if this is possible in the particular patch of empty Wyoming scrub they have picked out. The circular nature of this question is puzzling: if you didn’t drill damn holes in the ground in the first place, you wouldn’t need to drill other holes to act as the liquid equivalent of a trash can, now would you? So, the little bits and parts I have to assemble into some sort of workable whole don’t bother me, but the whole concept of what is going on here does. It’s best to get busy doing something else, I’m certain.
Next week (or the week after that, or even later still after that, but, definitely, before I move), I’ve decided to do something that I’ve never done before: go camping - by myself. It sounds like at least a minor challenge, plus it’s cheap, relaxing, and (hopefully) quiet. I haven’t been camping, even in a group, for a long time. I went “camping” with some friends of mine in Denver years ago. It was me and three guys: all nervous art-student urbanites. Someone had a tent he borrowed from his mom — however, he had never put it up before. Another thought the deadly combination of jicama and sauerkraut would make a fine outdoors dinner. The third, slightly more prepared, brought matches and a flashlight. I brought my knowledge of having actually gone camping before, no matter how distant in the past.
We set out, late at night (for this was a fine last-minute decision), and drove up somewhere near Central City. We found a spot, paid the fee, hilarity ensued. It was cold and wet. We barely got the tent up, but it wouldn’t fit us all. Lacking dry firewood, we ended up lighting someone’s sketchbook on fire. Then, there was a loud airplane-like noise outside. The majority of them thought it was a bear, and huddled together for comfort. The minority of me told everyone not to freak out, but then I was overruled as the rest of them made for the car, and we left, a mere hour after we came, leaving the jicama in the woods for the next people to find.
This trip — whenever and wherever it happens — should go better. No sketchbooks will be harmed, I hope.
The last few days were pretty stressful. I hate looking for apartments, but I assume that everyone does, so I don’t feel alone. I have a track record of taking the first apartment I look at, whenever I have looked for one in the past, and I am here to report that my record is still unblemished.
The first apartment I visited in person was the winner because I did so much calling and driving by apartments before I (or, more precisely, we, since my mom showed up to help me, being that a few days looking for apartments is better than spending them in rural Oklahoma) actually decided to look at one of them. Most of the apartments I could afford were teeny, or far away, or contained in buildings that looked like they were falling apart, or were “guest houses,” i.e., sheds in people’s crappy backyards, or, even, all of the above.
I called about studios: one was 10′ x 10′, with “cooking facilities” rather than an actual kitchen (hotplate, toaster oven, or worse, I assume). Another was 14′ by 16′, with the closet in the shared hallway rather than in the apartment itself. I feel that at age 30, I should no longer be living in a studio. If I were living in Manhattan, rather than Albuquerque, the idea would be sort of understandable, but I’m not, so it isn’t.
The one I ended up with is not a studio, though: it actually has separate, but small, rooms.
Its pluses: walking distance to school, grocery store, other things, is actually in the part of the city I wanted to be in, nicely maintained building, hardwood floors, an okay amount of cabinet/counter space, off-street parking, all utilities included, and, most of all (this being the item that made me choose this apartment) a second story, which consists of a large, screened-in patio on top of the building.
Its minuses: barely affordable (although the utilities thing and its closeness to school [saving me bus/parking expenses] make it more affordable than it might first appear), one-year lease (pretty standard for the apartments in the area), potentially scary management company, no pets allowed, very little closet space, tiny.
I could have done much worse, though.
There is a fine line, I’ve found, between yards that are neatly xeriscaped (lawns are rare there) and dirt lots.
The rest of my time down there was spent unsuccessfully trying to meet with the graduate advisor, and, in better news, locating all of the necessary record, book, and natural-food stores and their relative proximity to my new domicile. Albuquerque has great thrift stores, I must say. Of course, those where I live now suck completely, so anything seems good in comparison, but there was a lot of good stuff there. Only now, I will be living somewhere where there is no place to put things.
I am home.
I have an apartment.
I am tired. An eight-hour drive each way, on winding mountain passes, in the thick of tourist season, is far too much.
More later.