Life, Work & Wonder

Author: Rob In Seattle

  • Last Night I Made Soup: The Recipe Was Delicious

    I never liked to cook. Eventually, I hated to cook. Finally, I refused to cook.

    In the beginning I cooked because I needed to eat. But I didn’t like it very much. It was just a chore I tried to get through as fast as I could.

    Then I had kids. And kids needed to eat. So for the better part of 20 years I cooked breakfasts, prepared school lunches, and made dinner. And since my now-ex was often gone, I was doing this while also trying to work, tend to the dogs, get the kids to their events and helping them with their homework. It was hell. I became pretty worn down, actually, and I remember in the late 2000s every night in the late afternoon sitting down with an espresso and a cocktail trying to motivate myself to cook yet another meal.

    Then my now ex started medical school. And somehow I was expected to cook for her (and her classmates) too. And to be supportive I did it. And that, among other things, broke me.

    For more than five years, I’ve all but refused to cook. I’ll be an assistant cook (“Rob, would you turn the oven on to 400”), I’ll prep cook (maybe), I’ll clean up, but otherwise I want to eat out at restaurants, eat take away food (note: I’m American but prefer the Brits use of Take Away over To Go 🙂 ), or warm up food, but I all but refuse to cook.

    But yesterday Larissa had a super busy day that went until the early evening. I knew she was tired, and didn’t want to go to a restaurant, and didn’t want to think about cooking food (she normally likes to cook but has been so busy the past few weeks), so I decided to take it off her plate.

    And I cooked.

    I spent half an hour researching “healthy hearty simple” soup recipes. I found one that seemed very very healthy and tasty, and had a prep time listed as 10 minutes. So I went to the grocery store, purchased all the spices and vegetables and broths, came up, turned the music up high, and started cooking.

    Did it take much longer than 10 minutes? Heck yes! These prep times assumes someone has a commercial kitchen with vast amounts of experience dicing and slicing things. But that’s okay. I got into a zen moment, did what needed to be done, and when Larissa got home a delicious soup was waiting for her.

    The recipe was amazing. I will use it again.

    Anyway, sometimes in life we have to break through our resistances. For me, that is cooking. I’m happy I cooked last night. I hope to do it again soon.

    RECIPE: https://www.loveandlemons.com/vegetable-soup/

  • The Best Gift I Ever Received Was A Divorce

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  • AI Stole My Love Of The Em Dash :(

    My sophomore year in high school was 1984.

    1984 was a fun year to be in high school. The 1980s as we think of them were really just starting to take shape, leaving the last remnants of the 1960s (aging hippies) and 1970s (disco) behind. The stock market was booming, “Yuppie” became a thing, and ESPN starting transitioning from table tennis and Australian Rules football to decidedly-American sports like football and baseball.

    I also had an English teacher who seemed obsessed with two things: the novel 1984. And the em dash. We spent two weeks learning about and practicing the em dash.

    There was so much about school I hated because it seemed so pointless to my teen-age brain — multiple choice exams, pep assemblies and Geometry come to mind.

    But I came to love the em dash.

    The em dash is awesome!! It is punchier and a lot more sexy than a colon or parentheses. And as a person who is often told by countless people in his life that he has undiagnosed Attention Deficit Disorder (even in a time when everyone thinks every human has Attention Deficit Disorder) how much I love that I can change my thought or direction during a sentence by simply putting in an em dash. Plus, very few people use the em dash in practice, so I’ve discovered over the years that very very few grammar nazis add their two cents about my use of em dashes.

    Then AI came along. And perhaps AI was partially coded by a former 10th grade classmate. Or it took a lot of its knowledge from 1984 textbooks. Or it just has it out for me. Regardless of the reason, AI thought, “Hey, I’m going to use this em dash thing. A lot!”

    Now I frequently am asked if AI has done my writing for me. And commentors on Reddit etc. have insisted that I used AI to write my writings. Why? Because apparently the em dash is a dead giveaway for AI. Not only have I seen countless pundits making this observation, but recently I’ve seen articles in Apple News and other sources about the proliferation of the em dash in AI.

    Now I’m afraid to use the em dash. Because I don’t use AI to write — writing is one my great joys in life — and I don’t want people to think I’m lazy and rely on AI to do my writing for me.

    Years ago I remember the Seattle Times writing about a lovely fishing and swimming spot that it considered a hidden gem. A few weeks later there was a letter to the editor wherein a person who’d been going to that spot for years complained that spot was now overrun by people who’d seen the article. “I wish I could ruin something you love,” the writer said to the editor. Now I kinda of know how that person feels — the em dash has been tainted for me.

    Sigh.

    First world problems.

    I guess a life wherein a big problem is the tainting of the em dash is a pretty good life indeed. For that, I’m grateful.

    COMMENT/NOTE:

    • No use of AI was used to write or edit this post 🙂
    • This is a re-post from my LinkedIn profile post.

  • Life Is Growth Of The Sole (AKA Yesterday’s Perfect Shoes Are Not Today’s Perfect Shoes)

    Tell us about your favorite pair of shoes, and where they’ve taken you.

    In 1997 I found the perfect pair of shoes.

    They were in the window of a small shoe boutique, and for me they were perfect at the time: not too expensive, very comfortable, very fashion forward, and could work with slacks or jeans. I purchased the shoes and wore them nearly every day for two years. I got lots of compliments on them and I loved them.

    In 2003 I found a different pair of shoes that I loved. They were Kenneth Coles and pretty tame in comparison to the shoes I wore in the 1990s. But at the time I was working in Corporate America, in a job that required many hours and my wearing slacks and a dress shirt during those hours, walking many many miles through airports and business centers while working those hours, and my Kenneth Coles were so comfortable they were almost like tennis shoes in a time before people wore tennis shoes with suits. Plus these shoes were easy to polish while watching TV on a Sunday, and had thick soles that made me appear on the north side of six feet (before I lost an inch or two to back issues 🙂 ), and I just loved those shoes so much.

    Today the shoes I love are my tennis shoes. I have a pair of bright Keehus that I loved, and a pair of Chlae Bradley high tops that I also love. Just like my beloved shoes from 1997, I wear them with jeans and I wear them with suits and they are very very comfortable to walk in. And since I have a pair of cloth overshoes I wear in the house, I rarely have to take them off during the day even though our house is a shoeless house (be gone, sidewalk germs!).

    Anyway, for me a good life is a life with personal growth. One where we are continuously evolving, learning, adapting, trying to get better (kinder and wiser). Normally, I strive for growth in the soul. But in this case, it’s growth of the sole 🙂

    I love shoes. I love comfortable shoes, I love fun shoes, I love adaptable shoes, and I love stylish shoes. I’m grateful for the fun (and affordable) shoes I’ve owned over the years.

  • My Struggle With The Balancing Act As Social Media (AKA A Natural Goofball Trying To Reign It In)

    I’m a bit of a goofball by nature.

    It’s largely genetic.

    My dad (who is long retired and nearing 80) is by nature a clown. Although he wore a tie and reigned in his goofy behavior during the work day, as a kid he was voted “Class Clown” and as an adult at night he became a natural ham.

    For me, he was the dad who at a crowded restaurant stepped up to the front desk and pretended he was the snobby host, much to the laughter of the crowd when they learned he was just a patron like the rest of us. He was the Huskies fan who mowed a big “UW” into Cougars-loving neighbor’s lawn to the laughing delight of all the other neighbors. People love him and his antics. But at work he was someone else. I first witnessed this when I joined him for lunch at work 30 years ago, when he seemed very serious and people called him “Mr. Mathison.” I had never seen that side of my dad before.

    Time was in my 30s and into my 40s I tried to reign in my own goof behavior. But I find it increasingly hard in this era of social media and the ability to post words anywhere and everywhere. One where as agents or professionals we’re encouraged to post often to build a platform.

    For example:

    • Last week, I wanted to post a video of using children’s clip clops to navigate between houses to keep my shoes dry during a rainy day.
    • I wanted to post a mock video of ways to help our children cheat on tests better, saying this was the real way of helping them get ahead in 21st Century Corporate America.
    • I wanted to post an AI-generated video of a superhero real estate agent (me) saving a tree from crushing a client’s house, not unlike the infamous Vern Fonk videos.

    Of course, a calmer head and my wife (and real estate partner) stopped me. “Would you want a goofball negotiating for you?” My wife asked. But it’s hard.

    I’m in some training the past couple of weeks. “Social media, social media, social media,” we’re told. But I don’t want to do social media to self-proclaim how amazing I am. Or to add yet more seriousness to the world.

    I want to be spontaneously me. And genuine. And for me, what is genuinely normal is being a good at what I do but also being a total goofball who doesn’t take himself too seriously. Because work is work, but social media takes itself too seriously. There are too many pundits and influencers out there who proclaim they are The Stuff.

    Me? I want to do the social media thing as a sign of respect to my trainers. But I want to do it my way, much to the chagrin of my respectable wife (she wisely asks, would you want someone who is goofy on social media negotiating for you?). In the end, I guess I’ll choose to do it more anonymously (here). And not so much in a professional forum.

    In other words, I’ll try my best to be serious with a tie on (figuratively speaking) who then mows a giant UW into the neighbor’s lawn at night.

  • Budgeting: A Tale Of Two Lives (Then and Now)

    Write about your approach to budgeting.

    Over the decades and over the years, my approach to budgeting has changed.

    Partly because of the times, but mostly because of the circumstances.

    Time was I had to budget to the penny every single month.

    Part of this was because my mom was a CPA and budgeted to the penny every month so that was normal for me. But mostly it was because I was broke.

    I was in graduate school with rent to pay, then I was a lowly-paid teacher with a mortgage to pay, and every single month money was tight. Exceptionally tight.

    At the time, I used a chart on graph paper to keep track of every necessary bill (mortgage, electricity) and reconciled the checkbook to the penny, and if a bill didn’t arrive on time I called to ask how much it was so I could pay it and not worry about it showing up unexpectedly. Every month was down to the dollar, and more often than not the last week of the month was a reliance on broccoli soup since broccoli was cheap. I remember joining a mail-order coffee club because they gave a free coffee machine, and that was the only way I could afford a coffee machine. Adding to that was the city of Seattle, of course, which had exceptionally high license renewal fees/taxes each year for car renewals despite the fact I was driving a very basic and aging car, so every August when that was due I’d moonlight a second or third job to cover that expense so I didn’t have to fret about it.

    But overall it was hell.

    Today budgeting is easier.

    I have some money in savings, I am steadily building my retirement savings for 10 or 15 years down the road, and we’re good about not living beyond our means, and all my financial obligations except credit card* are on autopay, and my daily expenses go on credit card, so I don’t have to hyper manage my budget anymore. In fact, although I religiously check every expenditure that goes out, I don’t budget per se, and I don’t fret per se, although if we have a big expense coming up (trip to see family, house repair) I’ll put the money for it aside in a separate account.

    It’s hard to be poor. It’s exhausting to be poor. It’s stressful to be poor. There is absolutely no margin for error to be poor. So for me when I was part of the working poor (much of my adult life, actually, given that I gave my 20s and part of my 30s to teaching) I relied heavily on a budget, had no room for extras, and kept track of every single penny.

    I’m grateful that in recent years I can be more re-active and less stringently uptight. It makes life more enjoyable. And it also gives me compassion for the people who are part of the working poor like I was.

    NOTES

    (*) Not having credit card on autopay forces me to go through the bill each month in a timely manner to comb for errors and/or fraudulent charges while also keeping an eye out on my spending habits for the month so I can adjust if necessary.

  • Inadvertant Criminal: Killing Stress (Illegally?) In Alaska

    Have you ever unintentionally broken the law?

    In 2003 I was stressed.

    I was in software sales, selling to the State of Alaska, and 600-employee company I worked for was largely dependent on our client (State of Alaska) signing our new sales contract to meet our numbers for the month.

    The sales organization I was working for, like most sales organizations, was not a tolerant organization. They needed me to bring in the new contract and by gosh if I didn’t bring it in then quite possibly I was going to be fired. So I felt a lot of pressure.

    A wrinkle was, I’m ethical. I refuse to lie, cheat, bully or bullshit to get a contract signed, so I was essentially relying on good old fashioned pleading (“please can you sign this by the 31st??”) and client relationship (if a client likes me they’re more likely to try to get it signed on time) to get this thing signed on time, but the reality is I didn’t know if my client could get approval from the state to sign it by the end of the month.

    It was evening of the second to last day of the month, and the next day would determine whether or not the contract would be signed on time, and my boss (who was under the same pressure I was) and I flew up to Alaska to try to nudge this contract along, partially because it’s true the squeaky wheel gets the oil. That night, after spending an afternoon with the client, we went out to a dinner, had a few more glasses of wine than we should have, then joined some other associates at a local bar for another beer or two, mostly to drown out the stress we were feeling over getting the contract signed.

    I wasn’t obnoxiously drunk, but I was pretty tipsy by the time I left the bar and walked the few blocks to my hotel.

    Little did I know that I’d broken the law that night.

    According to several online sources, Alaska has a state law prohibiting being intoxicated at a bar. When that law was signed, and why it was signed, I don’t know, but it does appear to be a law all the same. And I definitely had had a glass of wine or two too many that night.

    Thankfully the contract was signed the next day, so the deal was signed and my job was secure for at least a day until the next morning when it was the first of the month and the rat race started all over again. But best of all, I didn’t get fined or jailed for unintentionally breaking a law that evening 🙂

  • Where Did 35 Years Go??

    Today I was driving home from errands and it was sunny, a rarity on a February Sunday in Seattle. Being that it was sunny my head felt clear, and being that I was stuck in traffic my mind was wandering, and my thoughts eventually drifted back to 35 years ago.

    Back then, in the late 80s and early 90s when I was in college, every boy I knew played and watched basketball. Football was fine, and some kids watched baseball, and a few were into hockey, but the majority of us were mostly into basketball. We all played basketball, and most kids were at least decent at it, and we had a lot of really fun games playing on the playground, and then in the evenings sometimes we’d gather to watch the college and pro games.

    I was thinking about this, and then thinking about Christian Laettner, who is about my age and was a marvelous basketball player at Duke, and I was thinking how talented he was and tall he was and self-assured he was. And I realized that that self-assured kid who had everything (talent, height, fame, athletic ability, future wealth) including his ENTIRE ADULT LIFE still ahead of him is now (WTF!!!) 56 years old.

    56 is not young. In fact, it’s closer to 80 then it is to 30, and closer to 90 then it is to 20. And what’s more 56 arrived very very rapidly.

    How did all of this happen?

    How did someone my age become 56? How did I become that age? How did Michael Jordan become old (60s) and Jerry Rice become old (60s) and Joe Montana very old (70s) when just last year they were young with their entire adult lives ahead of them.

    I just don’t know how it is that 35 years went by so quickly, and also where they went. And also it’s amazing how often and how hard this realization strikes me. I can never quite get over how quickly this life thing whisks by for all of us, including me.

    Anyway. Life is so very short. And our youthful primes are even shorter. And 35 years goes by — poof — in a blink of an eye. Here’s hoping the next 35 years go a lot slower 🙂 And I’m grateful that at least I have my memories and can remember very well back when I was in college.

  • My Autobiography Title Would Be “Ugly Boy” (AKA Takes A Licking And Keeps On Ticking)

    If there were a biography about you, what would the title be?

    As a teen, I was teased a lot about my looks.

    But my favorite tale is the time in eighth grade when my classmate burst into class. “Hey everyone, get this!” He called out to the class. “Tony’s grandma was looking at our yearbook last night and stopped and pointed at a picture and said, ‘Now that boy’s ugly.’ So Tony looks who to see it was and it was Rob!” Of course, I’m Rob in that story, and I can still hear the laughter from my classmates.

    To make a long story short, that was a painful comment but I kept my head up. And I have many many faults, but I’m a reasonably confident person who didn’t let that teasing about my looks in my formative years bring me down and in fact had a lot of fun in my teen years. I’m actually kind of proud of that if I’m honest, that I hung in there and resisted the urge to withdraw from the world despite some heartless ribbing along the way.

    I’ve had a lot of luck in my life. But I’ve also had my share of times where I was kicked in the groin. I had undiagnosed autoimmune disease as a kid but somehow emerged from that reasonably productive as an adult. My first marriage was to a selfish narcissist who eventually kicked me to the curb after extracting every morsel that she possibly could from me but again I emerged from that too (and today am re-married to a much better person). And perhaps luckiest of all, I was diagnosed with a potentially terminal (50/50) lung disease at age 42 but not only survived that but emerged from it mostly okay.

    So I feel like I’ve lived a lucky life where I have so much to be grateful for, but also one where I’m frequently called “Ugly Boy” (mostly figuratively but one time literally) that I have had to stave off and then emerge from. And I have done just that.

    I feel so fortunate for all that. So grateful for that. I am proud to say that I was called “Ugly Boy.” And that I emerged from that a-oh-kay 🙂

  • Living A Different Life Than My Parents (AKA My Parents At My Age)

    PROMPT: What were your parents doing at your age?

    I was always 5-10 years behind my parents.

    By the time they were 20, my parents were married (to each other 🙂 ). They started careers at 21, having kids (me) at 21 and they owned a house by 22. Later, they upgraded their house by age 27, started earning decent money at 30, and making great money at age 40.

    Me?

    I was married (for the first time) at 25. Started my career job at age 29. Had kids and a house at 30. And started earning decent money at age 35.

    Always I was about five or ten years behind them. And that was okay.

    By some miracle I caught up to them by age 40.

    At age 40 I had some lucky breaks in my career, and I too suddenly started making pretty great money, just like my parents themselves had done at 40. Mom was proud of me, telling me that I was farther ahead of them by age 40, but the reality is we were about even.

    Then life took me on a different path for me.

    I got lung disease at 43. What started out as some fatigue and breathless when I exercised at age 40 was diagnosed as potentially-fatal lung disease when I was 43. That irrevocably changed the course of my life.

    Whereas my parents spent their 40s having fun and accumulating money for retirement, I spent my 40s managing my health and holding on for dear life to my life and my career.

    I spent countless hours in the doctor’s office. I lost a job, then found and lost another job. Meanwhile, after 5 years of trying to push and horse whip me back into my past successes despite my lung disease, my (now ex) wife lung gave up on me and moved on, first emotionally and then completely.

    By 50 my parents were living their greatest life and could retire at any time.

    By 50 I was job hopping, making half what I’d been at age 40, job hopping, managing my health as a second job, and hoping I could scrape enough together to retire by age 70.

    In short, by age 50 my parents had been a LOT better off than I was.

    And that’s okay.

    I’m not my parents. My life is not my parents’ life. I was blessed because life could have just used my lung disease to kill me, but instead it spared me and I learned that I am a survivor, a battler, and surprisingly resilient.

    And, overall, happy. Happier than I was at age 40, for sure.

    I’m remarried. I won’t retire rich but by age 70 I’ll be okay.

    In short, I was behind my parents, then caught up to my parents, then life pushed them ahead while knocking me back. And all in all I’m grateful. Because at the end of the day, all that matters to me is carving out some joy, managing my stress, and being alive.