Friday Five Books

Jan posted this great FF: "I hope some of you received books for Christmas presents; I did and have been reading ever since. Then I discovered a new author from those recommendations that pop up on Amazon.com. Instead of buying those books, I've been checking them out at the library, which will not help Amazon's future recommendations for me at all.

So tell us what you're reading, what you would and would not recommend--five books or authors! And if you don't want to do that freestyle, here are some questions:"

So beloved is not from the readers. We learned early on that when she tried to buy me books, I had already read them or was not interested. And when I buy her books, I read them...

1. What books have you recently read? Tell us your opinion of them.

I've been reading 'Trauma and Recovery' by Judith Herman as recommended by my shrink, Very enlightening. A little too enlightening. I read a few pages and cry, read a few pages and cry and repeat.

2. What books are awaiting your available time to be read?

I got a swell new present for Christmas, an IPAD. I've been downloading a lot of stuff, although when I'm in place, I still like to pick up a book and I still like to graze through the Strand Bookstore-one of the best on the planet. I'm waiting to read "Jesus Freak" by Sarah Myles.

3. Have any books been recently recommended?

I'll be searching your blogs to look for suggestions.

4. What genre of books are your favorite, along with some titles and/or authors you like best?

I do love the Jeffrey Deaver, Kathy Reichs suspense, mystery's.

5. What have you read lately that you have a strong urge to recommend? (or to condemn?)

Stay tuned. I haven't read anything lately that I really loved except a series about a family of detectives that I can't remember the author or the titles-happening more and more. The series is hilarious, but, gone blank. I'll ask at work.

Friday Five Christmas Redux

Kathrynzj posted this Holiday reduz: "Yes, I know it's January and yes, I know some of us are still on a cool sprint after only a brief respite (if that) from Advent and Christmas BUT... before we move too far along into The Next, I wanted to give us a chance to reflect onWhat Was.

A couple of staff members and I sat down today and wrote down what worked and didn't work during the Advent and Christmas season. There are quite a few things bearing down on us at the moment so it was a discipline to do it, but ten and a half months from now Future Me is going to LOVE that we made the effort.

And so partly to give us all a record and partly to give us all a chance to reflect on the 2010 Holiday Season now that we are out of it, I ask you this:"

1) What food item was one of your favorites this year - a definite keeper?

Well, For Christmas eve, we went really simple with Turkey, Sweet Potatoes, Peas and ta tum Pastries from a new Italian pastry shop near our new home in Long Beach. This is a going to be a new tradition. Those cookies reminded me of my mothers and they were great!

2) Was there a meal or party or a agathering that stands out in your mind from this most recent holiday season?

It was the Christmas, get-out-of-town. We heard the forecast of two feet of snow and on Christmas morning we were checking the train schedule for trains to the city-that is Manhattan. We played Scrabble on my Christmas gift ipad on the train and that was the gathering that stands out. Those that didn't leave LB-like my boss- were stuck till Wednesday.

3) Were you involved in a jaw-dropper gift? Were you the giver or recipient or an on-looker?

I was the recipient of an overly generous ipad. They say that electronics and gadgets are the gems of the future and I'm wearing it with pride and having a LOT of fun, though a bit paranoid of using it on the subway.

4) Was there at least one moment where you experienced true worship?

I've been praying for a breakthrough in my search for a higher being. I have made a resoulution to try St. James Church in Long Beach this year, but so far no experience in true worship...

5) What is at least one thing you want to make sure you do next year?

See 4

BONUS: What is something you absoutetly must remember to do differently... or not at all!

I have to remember not to stress out, to breathe, to relax and to not take things so seriously. Maybe to take a meditation class or chair yoga something to actively relax.

Friday Five Christmas Past

Not my family

Jan posted this Friday Five:

1. I started talking about my childhood Christmas in a previous post. I had a drunk father who got drunker at Christmas-what a good time!- and an angry non-drunk mother who worked harder at this season. This goaded my father who wanted a stay-at-home wife to have his dinner on the table. This made for a highly anxious little Joanna.

2. Meanwhile I was in a private Catholic School where I sang in the choir, and all things Christmas was good. Talk about a mixed message. I had nobody to talk about re: this.

3. For a long time when I came to NY I had a house in the country-Orient Point, LI and we had a lot of fun at Christmas, including a lot of...you guessed it, drinking. We also gathered oysters wearing tall rubber boots in the cold. A good memory.

4. I've finally started talking about this part of my childhood and my therapist calls it Trauma. I'm reading Trauma and Recovery by Judith Herman . I read a few pages and cry, repeat.

5. Now my holidays are mixed holidays are Hanukah and Christmas as my beloved is Jewish. This sometimes works well.

#reverb10- Community

Community. Where have you discovered community, online or otherwise, in 2010? What community would you like to join, create or more deeply connect with in 2011?

This is a difficult season for me. The holidays were a frightening time in my family. My father would drink more than ever and my mother would stay at work longer-because they needed her and because she liked it and it was her community and because she would rather be there than at home. I knew that when my mother finally got home from work, my father would be high and angry and my mother would just be angry at my father.I would pace at the end of the driveway looking for the lights of my mothers car. I would be anxious. Happy Holidays! My therapist calls this a form of Trauma as I still get depressed around the holidays.

Now that we are spending more and more time in Long Beach, NY I am trying to find community there. The time we are spending is currently so short-weekends-that this is difficult, but I have found a nice Episcopal Church-with a gay male pastor! who I have corresponded with, but have not attended the church yet. This will be one way. I have attended some AA meetings there, but not since summer. I have had a meeting with the folks who are trying to start a lgbt community center and have said that I will help them to get it started-they are so young! So I have made a start.

As you can see, I am not quite following the rules of this reverb think, but it is getting me to blog a little more and that's making a bet of a difference, so that's what counts for me.

#reverb10- Dec. 3 Moment

I've decided to participate in #reverb10 to jump start my blogging. I learned about it from another Revgal and it seemed like a good idea. I don't guarantee I will do it every day or that I will finish, but I will try.
So day one for me is:
December 3 – Moment. Pick one moment during which you felt most alive this year. Describe it in vivid detail (texture, smells, voices, noises, colors).
We arrived in Turkey. The first day and the second day are mixed up in my mind but the first evening that we had on our own, I think was actually the second night or at least we had a full nights sleep. Beloved and I walked out into an area with no vehicle traffic, just foot traffic. It was busy. People in western dress and in eastern dress, women covered and uncovered, that is in burkahs and in western dress. My godchild who lived in Turkey for 5 years told us that it had become much more conservative, but to my uneducated eye not so draconian.
The street had many vendors including men, all the vendors were men squeezing pomegranates for juice and selling the juice which was ruby red and the seeds were like jewels. There were men selling all kinds of things, jewelery, pashima scarves. It was noisy, but not worse than NY on a noisy day, but my eyes were full of colors and new sights, exotic, exciting but European at the same time. The smell of food, smoke, body odor was everywhere.
We came to an area with small alleyways and lots of restaurants and looked into a number of them, and chose one at random. It was a hole in the wall with tables outside for smoking-we though as there was a man out there smoking- and inside tables with no customers. I guess we were early.
We ordered using what English the owner/waiter knew and the food was delicious. I had BBQ chicken cooked over a wood fire. It tasted like the best chicken I ever had, juicy, yet a little charred on the outside. The man outside was eating cheese and pickles and drinking Rake poured over a spoon into water where it made the water cloudy. We asked about the cheese. The waiter said "you don't want that!" We persisted! He continued. Finally, Beloved said we would order some. The waiter brought us a small sample. It looked like a solid white cheese as if you could slice Ricotta, but the taste was slightly funky and not really pleasant. I have eaten many cheeses, so was glad to have had a taste, but then the waiter told us it was made from the intestine-of what I am not sure. Then I was glad to have had just a taste.
After dinner we went to a dessert cafe where they had so many wonderful desserts including one made from chicken breast shredded and made with a sweet custard. The man next to us said it was good but hard to eat because of the stringy texture. I loved Turkey.

Kathrynzj posted this excellent FF: "Whether a RevGal or a Pal most of us in this cyber community have enhanced responsibilities during this time of year. We also have traditions - religious and secular - that mark the season for us in a more personal way.

For this Friday Five please let us know five of the things that mark the season for you.

And the bonus? Tell us one thing that does absolutely nothing for you."

1. Tonight I will be wrapping gifts we give to homeless children with my SFX Lesbian Group-still not Catholic but still hanging out with them...

2. The Office Christmas Party. Yes I like it and it's fun because my counselor, Brian makes this game called 'ghetto grab bag' that is so funny, yet so mean and takes so long that every one is engaged and happy by the end and we go to really good restaurant in Brooklyn!

3. Lighting the Menorah with Beloved, because it's so intimate and lovely and watching the little candles grow every night and she says the prayer in Hebrew.

4. Seeing all the strange and makeshift lights on my street, because of course, we have not front yards so people make do and it's all kind of strange and fun.

Bonus 5. I hate that it all started before Thanksgiving and some of it even before Haloween, can you believe it!

Management Lessons

1.) Lesson One Never publicly chastize an employee. If you feel the need to correct an employee, take them aside or wait till later and call them to your office and speak with them.

I'm a counselor and also first level management, that is I'm a senior counselor and I manage a unit of 10, 7 counselors and 3 support staff. I attend many meetings including 2 management team meetings per month. I may have mentioned previously that about 2 years ago, my very good friend became our office manager. This has created boundary issues for me and for her in particular-I think.

Our office is very diverse with staff from Nigeria, Russia, Jamaica and lots of other islands, Puerto Rico, China, and etc. The new manager, a white Jewish woman (and I mention this because this is the default manager for our agency) rather than taking it slow when she came in, and getting the lay of the land, starting making change, some of it draconian, immediately. This caused instability in the office who had heard of this individual-as we are a small agency relatively-and were tentative about her coming to our office, or outright afraid.

This ultimately resulted in a letter from the staff to Human Resources and a meeting with the Assistant Commissioner and the District Office Manager and the staff, but not the offending manager. And some follow up corrective actions and some paranoia.
That's the setup:

In my unit I have several people with disabilities including myself, but one uses Access A Ride, the local option for individuals with disabilities who can't use bus/subways. This is a good but creaky option which requires reservations and wait time.

The day before a holiday we ofter close early, but we never know until the whim of the manager of that moment. Even the supervisors, first line managers don't know, so I made the mistake of asking at the management team meeting. I was publicly humiliated by my boss/friend who said, "You should know better. You work for the government. We never close early. If that happens if happens quietly and it's a gift. You don't ask if you're getting a gift?" All at shouting level. I explained that I was just trying to make arrangements for my counselor-who is also recovering from double c-spine surgery. "We can't make arrangements for every counselor." All this from a professional who works for people with disabilities.

Friday Five Pie-O-La

Songbird posted this topical Friday Five and what an excellent one it is:



1. Are pies an important part of a holiday meal?

Most definitely! When I was growing up in the middle of an orchard, we had many, many pies and everybody had their specialities. My Aunt Mary made a lemon meringue pie the likes of which I have not had since she passed away. It was so good and the meringue was perfect, sweet and with little beads of liquid sugar when it was humid. Yum. But we also grew sour cherries, perfect for pies, and peaches, plums, apples, I could go on and on. Yesterday we went out and I skipped the pumpkin-I only like mine- for coconut custard because I like custard pie. Not bad...



2. Men prefer pie; women prefer cake. Discuss

Hadn't really noticed. But the men I have observed growing up liked both and I do too.



3. Cherries-do they belong in a pie.

Yah, you betcha!



4.Meringue-if you have to choose, is it best on lemon or chocolate?

Never on chocolate, only on lemon.



5. In a chicken pie, what are the most compatible vegetables? Anything yo don't like to find in a chicken pie.

OK. Who ever had that really bad idea to put red peppers or any peppers in to chicken pot pie for a "little color?" Might as well cut up crayons and drop them in. Chicken pot pie is nice and comforting, why mess with it. I hate peppers! Just some nice peas and carrots and some potatoes and maybe a little, very little celery. Ok that's it and big pieces of chicken, white meat please.

Friday Five Unexpected Things

Jan posted this-not so easy- Friday Five:

"With the American holiday of Thanksgiving being less than a week away, I tried to think of some questions for Friday Five that could be connected to this, but in a new way. So here is my one try:

Name five things that were unexpected in your life that you are now grateful for."

1. I was born! Yes, my fathers first wife died of an illegal abortion and he wanted my mother to have one too (found that gem out when they were fighting and I was in the 7th grade in Catholic School-it did make quite an impression on me!) I also found out my mother was divorced. Wow! Years later, my elderly aunt told me this information, maybe 10 years ago, and I was able to tell her how I found out about it. Made quite an impression on a Catholic 7th grader, I must say!

2. I was a lesbian! It started to dawn on my when I found myself stalking my World History teacher, Ms Marsco! Not outside of school, but inside. It was a slow dawning of what this was all about, but by senior year, when I had several crushes on other students, I was getting it! Of course I dated boys all through college, no gay groups then until the Kent State Gay Liberation Front when I finally came out then went back in to do student teaching. I was still living at home.

3. I moved to NYC right after College. What was I thinking? But I was brave and I persevered and lived in a 5th floor walk up with cockroaches that had two arson fires, one that had us move out-where was the Red Cross? I lived on a friends couch for a week the went to my parents for two weeks-unpaid-my job had no sick or vacation time or insurance. I'm still here and happy!

4.I met beloved after kissing lots for frogs! I went to work at NYC NOW , the founding chapter, (a change of careers job) and she was a 'straight' volunteer'. Well she started paying a lot of attention to me and finally asked me out to dinner. 20 years this spring...

5. I'm still alive after all of this and some more. And I'm grateful to be here.

Friday Five-Winter's on the Way

When I was little and it snowed, I played with my cousins!

I'm the one in the middle.

Singing Owl posted this timely FF "The picture is of my back deck after the first heavy snow last winter. I am looking at the weather forecast with a sigh of resignation. You see, our glorious unseasonable stretch of sunny days is ending and rain mixed with snow is in the forecast. The weather guy actually said, "This is probably the last nice day till spring, folks..." So, I am trying to plan ahead. Help me out, please. When it is cold outside:"

1. What is your favorite movie for watching when curled up under a wooly blanket?

We haven't been renting or buying movies that much, relying on the gay station Logo to supply us with movies.

2. Likewise, what book?

The old faithful Strand, has great books at great prices and I'm always looking for a new book or 5, so call this my winter sport. I like mysteries, but not cozys, I'm just reading the "Girl Who" books, and I really like some of the spiritual books I have read about on the Revgal website. Harder to find, I like to read books that reflect my life. PS-tip! the Strand Bookstore is online!

3. What foods do you tend to cook/eat when it gets cold?

Now that we have an actual kitchen AND DISHWASHWASHER-DA-DUM!! I may find out!

4. What do you like to do if you get a "snow day" (or if you don't get snow days, what if you did)?

I have a million beads that I have bought in my travels. I may try to put them together somehow.
Did I mentionthat the State of NY does not give Snow Days. Not in my 12 years. And people with longer memories say they have NEVER gotten them and we have a very snowy state!

5. Do you like winter sports or outdoor activities, or are you more likely to be inside playing a board game? Do you have a favorite (indoors or out)?

As I said my winter sport, reading.