Knitnut.net. Watch my life unravel...
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Posted by zoom! on April 10, 2009, at 7:50 pm |
GC’s Passover dinner party plan was to make a main meat dish of beef brisket, a main meatless dish of something else, and a bunch of complimentary side dishes. However, the entire city of Ottawa ran out of beef brisket in the days leading up to Passover. I heard there were lineups, lost pre-orders, sold-out signs, and angry Jews. Some people ended up driving to Montreal to get their brisket.
But not GC. He didn’t get angry and he didn’t drive to Montreal. He just got paralyzed with indecision. Every day he woke up declaring “Today I’m going to figure out the menu.” And every night he fell asleep mumbling, “First thing tomorrow, I’m going to figure out the menu.”
Finally, on Thursday, the day of the big event, he sprang into action. He spent the morning immersed in cookbooks.
I arrived at his place in the afternoon to find the house smelling delicious, the dog’s tail wagging, and GC up to his elbows in ingredients. He had several dishes finished, others underway, and still others waiting in the wings.
I rolled up my sleeves and got to work peeling, measuring, chopping, simmering and drinking wine. We made about 10 dishes and drank a whole bottle of wine before the guests arrived.
Before the meal was served there were some traditions to be upheld, including some Hebrew readings, singing, question-asking and wine-drinking.
 The Seder Plate This was my first Passover, and I was pleased to discover that it’s a tradition for each person do drink four glasses of wine at Passover dinner. A couple of people reminisced about their first time getting drunk as seven-year-olds at Passover. (I was brought up agnostic, and I think agnostics need more traditions – some special days and food and celebratory wine!)
After the ceremonies, GC served dinner. Most of the food didn’t turn out as well as we had hoped, but after all that wine I don’t think we cared too much. There were a few dishes that had GC and me looking at each other quizzically across the table, telepathically communicating “Do you think it’s supposed to taste like this?”
One of the odder dishes was the strawberry mousse dessert. Maybe if we hadn’t been making so many recipes, we might have questioned the logic of a recipe that told us to freeze the mousse. I mean, when have you ever had mousse served frozen? But we didn’t question it, we just made room in the freezer, popped it in, and moved on to the next recipe. And several hours later we were unpleasantly surprised to discover it was frozen. Duh.
There were also a bunch of traditional Jewish dishes, like kuegel (I think I’m spelling it wrong, but it was sweet) and fish, and simmis (another sweet, misspelled dish). And there were salads. And chicken. And meatballs. And hummus. And green beans. And ratatouille. And soup. And wine.
My favourite dish of the evening was the curried spinach-lentil salad. Yum.
The guests – which included three Jewish college boys, two Jewish dogs, and the Quasi-Jewish Potty-Mouthed Songwriter and her BH – were charming and funny and never once raised their telepathic eyebrows at one another as if to say “Hmm, interesting, do you think it’s supposed to taste like this?” They just kept eating and drinking and cracking jokes that had nothing at all to do with the food.
GC and I were rightfully impressed with ourselves for actually managing to prepare ten dishes all at once. We don’t usually go for quantity over quality, but it’s good to know we’re capable of it.
 Chewing Faces The dogs spent the whole night chewing on each others faces. They almost overturned the table just as the meal was beginning, by wrestling and chewing faces under the table. The table lurched, wine glasses wobbled, people shrieked. It was very exciting. (Wrestling and face-chewing was permitted to resume after dinner, and both dogs were exhausted and coated with slobber by the end of the evening.)
I slept like a log and woke up with a hangover. It was worth it.
Posted by zoom! on April 9, 2009, at 8:29 am |
One of the Blue-Eyed Hermits sent me these pictures yesterday. I don’t know who any of the photographers are, but I wanted to share the pictures with you because they’re so trippy. (They’re even better bigger, so be sure to click on them.)
Do you have a favourite?
Posted by zoom! on April 7, 2009, at 3:05 pm |
Our mixed media course with Dipna Horra at the Ottawa School of Art has come to an end.
We spent the last 3-hour class hanging our art in the display windows, which was no mean feat. I won’t go into the gory details, but maybe it’s not such a good idea to cram 13 art students into a narrow hallway with 39 pieces of art and expect them to reach consensus about what should go where. Especially when one art student invites all her friends and family to participate and they bring flowers and cameras and turn it into a crowded hallway vernissage while everybody else is trying to make decisions and hang art around them. And when another student shows up an hour late with an unusually large piece of art that has to somehow be wedged in somewhere after the fact. But in the end, it all looked pretty spectacular and afterwards we had a little party and everything was lovely again. I love artists.
So, if you’re in the Market area and you feel like checking out our wacky amateur art exhibit, it’ll be on display until April 17th at the Ottawa School of Art at 35 George Street. GC and I each have three pieces in it. The school is open to the public, so just walk right in and go to the two window displays on the main floor, across from the elevators. (It’s closed for four days over Easter weekend though, so don’t go then.)
We think we’ll take a drawing course next. GC’s pretty good, and I’m pretty bad. I kind of like that I’m pretty bad because it leaves me so much room for improvement. Can anyone recommend a good introductory drawing teacher in Ottawa?
At the other end of the advice spectrum, I’m also looking for a financial advisor. (I have one for my RRSP, but he’s a commissioned salesman. For my current purposes I want someone who has no vested interest in steering me in any particular direction.) Basically I need someone who can assess the big picture – taxes, mortgage, severance package, etc. – and help me make some decisions about how to proceed financially from here.
UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE: Hella Stella just sent me coordinates for her financial dude, and I made the appointment. (I was just saying to my friend Gilles, who dropped by for coffee this morning, that one of the many benefits of being a blogger is that it provides you with such a rich source of references for good financial advisors, plumbers, art teachers, and other useful people.)
Posted by zoom! on April 5, 2009, at 8:27 pm |
 Officer Post: The Bank Street Bully I called the Ottawa Police the other day to request a status update on the investigation into the Bank Street Bully incident in December.
The investigating officer told me, in essence, that the investigation by the Professional Standards Section has gone nowhere and will be closed soon. The unconscious young woman in handcuffs, who was at the centre of this incident, is “of no fixed address” and they don’t know where to find her in order to interview her. None of the other witnesses came forward.
Officer Post admits to having ‘asked’ me to delete my photographs, but beyond that we apparently differ as to how the conversation unfolded. The bottom line is that it came down to his word against mine, and it’s just not enough. The report will remain on his file (for two years, I think) and could be used against him if he’s involved in a similar incident during that time. But apart from that, it looks like it’s over.
I was also told that Staff Sergeant Denis Cléroux, the officer who left the comment on my blog announcing the investigation by the Professional Standards Section, will be leaving a follow-up comment once the written report has been completed and submitted to him.
I’m disappointed but not surprised that it’s ending this way. I never expected the investigation to result in any concrete changes, or any official sanctioning of Officer Post.
I’ve heard from several sources that Officer Post has been in trouble before, and that he’s known for breaking the law and violating people’s rights while carrying out his duties. I heard that he was demoted a few years ago for something along these lines. But he’s still walking around this city wearing a uniform and carrying a gun and wielding all the power those things automatically confer upon him.
I have nothing against the police. Quite the opposite. I expect them to be decent human beings. That’s why I was, and still am, so appalled by Officer Post’s behaviour. I hold cops to a higher standard.
Some of the characteristics that I think preclude people from being good cops include arrogance, power issues, bully tendencies, poor judgement, a quick temper, superficial thinking skills, a TV-crime-show understanding of crime, an inability to see shades of grey, and feelings of superiority towards people who are different from them (ie colour, gender, sexual orientation, income, social status, etc.).
Some of the qualities I think cops need, in order to be good cops, include sound judgement, a sense of fairness, good problem-solving and communication skills, an understanding of social issues, intelligence, manners, and basic human decency.
In my opinion, every single cop in this city should have to meet this standard. After all, these are the people we’re permitting, for example, to knock a tiny young woman unconscious if they deem it necessary. Isn’t it reasonable to say we’ll only give that kind of power to decent human beings with good judgement?
Or am I just being naive?
(See also: Bank Street Bully, and Bank Street Bully Update)
Posted by zoom! on April 3, 2009, at 9:22 am |
I had intended to write a post last week introducing the new banner/masthead at the top of Knitnut.net, and asking for your feedback. But all that layoff stuff took over my brain and I didn’t do it. In the meantime, some of you sharp-eyed readers noticed the new banner and left comments about it on various posts. Thank you for that.
The banner was designed by the creative and talented Schmutzie, whose blog I love. Schmutize creates clever new mastheads for her own blog all the time, so I asked her to see if she could do something with my sheep.
What do you think? Do you like it? Can you think of anything that might make it even better?
 Front view of Crow teapot and mug In other news, I bought one of Chandler Swain’s crow teapots at the pottery show yesterday, and GC bought me a crow mug which I’m drinking my coffee from right this minute. The pottery show continues today and throughout the weekend, and there are still crow mugs, crow plates and crow teapots left, as well as non-crow stuff.
 Back view of crow teapot and mug
After the pottery show I went to the Ottawa Mixed Media Artists opening last night at the Britannia Gallery, and bought a newspaper dress. Yes, I know I’m unemployed and it was a crazy impulsive purchase, and this is not the best time to suddenly become a crazy impulsive shopper.
I woke up at 3:00 in the morning and worried about this for an hour or so. Eventually I realized that the reason I bought the newspaper dress is because in my heart I believe everything’s going to be okay. It was an act of optimism, an act of faith in myself. It was an act that asserts that I’m still me, and I’m not going to end up penniless in the gutter if I buy a piece of art I love.
But I also decided, at 4:00 in the morning, that I won’t buy any more newspaper dresses until I get another job.
You should see it! It’s called Fashion is Fleeting, and it was created by Patricia Gordon. It’s fabulous. It won the award for the best piece in the show. It’ll remain hanging on the wall at the Britannia Gallery until the end of the month if you want to go see it.
Posted by zoom! on April 2, 2009, at 10:00 am |
 Clue #2 Despite many clever guesses, there are still no winners in Zoom’s First Mystery Shot Contest. Therefore, the contest continues with Clue #2. See the original post for Clue #1 and contest rules, prizes and fine print.
In other news, remember my crow pottery than some of you lusted after? Well, the artist, Chandler Swain, sends this alert: “Just to let your covetous friends know: I have some crow pieces that I will be selling at the Ottawa Guild of Potters sale April 2-5 at the Hellenic Centre on Prince of Wales just south of Baseline.” Caw! Caw!
In other other news, this morning while I was getting dressed my entire closet organizing system collapsed and all of my hanging clothes fell on my head.
Posted by zoom! on April 1, 2009, at 1:38 pm |
Things are pretty good here at Chez Zoom. I saw a career coach yesterday and I feel like everything’s going to work out just fine.
Meanwhile, I’m starting to really dig this unemployment thing. It’s amazing how much you can get done when you don’t have to go to work. (Not that I’ve actually done anything so far, but I could have.)
 Zoom's Mystery Shot Contest Okay. Since I’ve got some extra time on my hands, I’m going to have a contest. With prizes! For you!
Contest
See this picture? If you’re the first person to leave a comment correctly identifying what it is or where it was taken, I’ll send you a surprise in the mail. (I have no idea what I’m going to send you – that’s how much of a surprise it is.)
(If you don’t like this contest, you can always enter the ESI’s Caption Contest instead. But I don’t think they have prizes or official contest rules or fine print or anything cool like that.)
Contest Rules and Fine Print
*This contest is open to all persons of any age and/or nationality and/or place of residence, except Zoom, members of Zoom’s immediate family, and Zoom employees. Winner might be required to answer a skill-testing question. The skill-testing question might be really really hard. The prize is not redeemable in cash and must be accepted as awarded. Decisions of the contest judges, no matter how arbitrary or ludicrous, are final.
Posted by zoom! on March 31, 2009, at 9:01 am |
I spent yesterday – my first official day of unemployment – at the office. I collected all my personal stuff on the weekend, but I didn’t like the idea of just walking away from my job without tidying up my files and leaving some basic information behind like the password for the server and the login information for the website. I don’t know who’s going to do my job from now on, but they’ll probably find it easier with the passwords. It did seem sad though that 18 years of work boiled down to two pages of typed instructions.
I got a little emotional towards the end, as I was taking the final walk down the corridor and out the door.
It wasn’t even the job I was sad about. Or the paycheque, although I will miss it. It was my morning cranberry-apple muffin from The Second Cup at Bank and Somerset. It was my Christie Lake Camp office mug. It was the tin can where we saved all the coins we found on the sidewalk for homeless Dave X. It was the warm paper coming out of the printer. It was my plant-filled ground-floor window looking out on the sidewalk. It was the people.
The people. I worked with good people. But hardly any of them even said goodbye. No goodbye lunch, no thank you for everything you’ve done over the years. It was kind of anti-climatic the way it all ended. But I will always be grateful to Angela for throwing her arms around me and crying, because I needed someone to feel sad that I was leaving.
In fairness, there’s hardly anybody left to care that we were leaving, or to organize a goodbye lunch. And maybe yesterday I didn’t look as approachable as I usually do. Besides, I’ve been on the other side of the equation, in which I was one of the ones staying, so I know how hard it is to think of something to say to the people who are leaving. I’ve been guilty of keeping my head low and trying to avoid laid-off colleagues, not because I didn’t care but because I did. So I shouldn’t take it personally.
Besides, it could have been worse. About fifteen years ago we took a laid-off colleague out for lunch to the Lone Star, where, for special occasions, all the waiters gather round and sing a song to the guest of honour. In this particularly unfortunate case, the waiters had been told it was a going-away party. At the end of the meal, they all suddenly descended on our table, surrounded our laid-off colleague, put a piece of cake in front of her, and, in unison, started singing:
We’re glad to see you go!
We’re glad to see you go!
We hope to hell you never come back!
We’re glad to see you go!
We all just stared in shock and shame. It was so, so awful.
Anyway. We’ve organized our own goodbye lunch for today, and it won’t be at the Lone Star.
Posted by zoom! on March 29, 2009, at 9:44 am |
They say you can tell a lot about a person by how they spend the first day after they’ve been laid off. Some people stay in bed and cry, others walk around in a daze, and a few even roll up their sleeves and start job-hunting.
Me, I went to a Sock Monkey workshop.
I wasn’t the only blogger at the sock monkey workshop, so maybe you’ll see some other sock monkeys around the blogosphere today. (Most of the bloggers were making monkeys, but at least one stopped by with the intention of reading a book about the history of the hydrogen bomb…he stayed for a quick chat while surveying the chaotic monkey-making scene, and then went off in search of a quieter venue.)
 Sock Monkey Girl with her collection of sock monkeys Some of the things I learned at the sock monkey workshop:
- There’s a whole sock monkey subculture out there, and this little girl* is clearly part of it. So is this guy.
- Sock monkey people are sweet. Nobody evil has ever made a sock monkey.
- No two sock monkeys are the same, even if they’re made by the same person following the same pattern.
- Imperfections improve sock monkeys.
 Kimberly Malysheff and her unnamed sock monkey The sock monkey workshop was led by the charming and multi-talented Kimberly Malysheff and hosted by Raw Sugar.
Kimberly was very kind and encouraging and she admired our monkeys every step of the way. She even asked GC if he was a tailor because his stitches were so perfect. He beamed. (I think that compliment almost made up for the parking ticket he got while we were in the workshop…)
I’m telling you, Raw Sugar is pretty much the best thing to ever happen to this city. It has become my neighbourhood coffee shop and I don’t even live in the same neighbourhood. So far I’ve gone there for a letter-writing night, a crafts night, a board games night, a reading, a music night, and now a Sock Monkey afternoon.
 GC and Zoom's sock monkeys That’s my sock monkey on the right with GC’s sock monkey. Between them they still need four arms, two tails and three ears. I’ll post another picture when we finish them. But don’t you just love them already?
*Bonus for knitters: Here’s a free pattern for a sock monkey hat.
Posted by zoom! on March 27, 2009, at 1:33 pm |
For the past 18 years I’ve worked at a non-profit organization.
In January, our new President reluctantly issued layoff notices to the entire staff, effective March 28, but said some or all of the layoff notices might be rescinded if she could find alternative sources of funding. We were asked not to tell anyone in the meantime.
So we worked and waited and watched for signs.
Stress was high and morale was low. Paranoia started creeping in around the edges.
When I started working there in 1991, there were 45 employees. Yesterday there were 10. Today there are seven.
I dodged the layoff bullet many times over the years, but not this time.
I saw it coming and I was pretty sure my name was on it. It was little things that gave it away, like noticing that certain managers were avoiding eye contact or conversation with me.
As I sat in the President’s office yesterday, along with my other friends who were being laid off, I felt like the moment had been rehearsed a hundred times by everybody in the room. I absorbed the news with a mix of emotions. I felt a bit detached, a bit numb, a little sad and hurt, a little angry, and a lot relieved. My head might be rolling on the floor, but at least it wasn’t waiting in the guillotine anymore. I even felt kind of sorry for the people who were staying, and for the people who had to deliver the news.
I’ve been through so much with this organization over the years. So many attempts to re-align and re-invent and re-define itself during and after so many sets of layoffs. So much perpetual motion and flux and inertia and wheel-spinning and course-changing in its efforts to survive. It became damned near impossible to keep galvanizing myself for more of the same.
But it still hurts to know that ‘my’ organization has chosen to redefine itself without me, especially when I think that this time they might actually get it right, and when I still hope they do.
Eighteen years is a long time. The first Gulf War was underway when I started working here. LA cops were filmed beating Rodney King. Brian Mulroney introduced the GST. Bill Clinton announced he would run for President. The Soviet Union officially ceased to exist.
I’ve moved six times during that period. I married and divorced. My child became an adult. I adopted two cats and a dog from the Humane Society, two of whom have since died of old age.
The organization has moved three times and had six Presidents during that time. It’s gone from typewriters to computers. The Internet didn’t exist publicly yet. We had memos and mimeographs. We even had a smoking lounge back then.
It’s a long time, eighteen years.
After the President had delivered the news and outlined our options and offered to help us in any way possible and given us the rest of the week off, the three of us picked our heads up off the floor and headed to the nearest bar where we enjoyed some beverages and camaraderie and a little gallows humour.
Later in the day I found myself at Mexicali Rosa’s with GC and we ran into John, who bought us a couple of tequila shooters. It had been a long time since I’d had a tequila shooter (actually, I think it was the last time I saw John), and GC said it was his first as an adult.
I feel okay today.
I won’t deny there’s a part of me that’s pissed off and wants to point the finger and assign blame, and trace the sequence of bad decisions that led to this point right up the ladder through our organization, and even beyond, all the way up to Stephen Harper, and even back in time to past management.
But you know what? The sun is shining, Spring is in the air, and I’m free. Thanks to my union, I have a decent severance package that will buy me some time while I figure out what I’m going to do next. I’m ready for a change.
Even if it is being foisted upon me.
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