Dinner Tonight

Our friend Mary, who just accepted a bitchin' job and will be moving to Seattle next month (sad, sad, sad, as she is one of our first friends in Austin), is coming over to our house for dinner. Since we're saving money for the rental house and I'm sure she's saving up for her move, it made sense to eat at home.

Although she's not vegetarian, she does have some restrictions -- so I'm thinking I'll just go vegetarian, since it will be a nice change. About a year ago, inspired by my best friend Melissa, I was trying a lot of veggie things...fake meat, dishes that didn't require the obligatory ground beef, etc. I enjoyed it, but the "meat and potatoes" kid inside of me would always pick up his utensils and demand some meat.

It also doesn't help that a majority of traditional Deutsch dishes want Fleisch. Especially my favorite recipes, like Reisfleischtopf and Rinderrouladen. Would I really shun vegetarianism simply because the bulk of good German recipes use meat?

Increasingly, I am fascinated by irrationality and (as I heard in an NPR story) how "humans are predictably unpredictable." I see this at work constantly, including on my own team. There are certain associates that you know, at some point in the future, will throw a fit about something that really has no bearing, merit, or meaning. But, they're going to do it soon about something and I'm going to have to deal with it. Now I'm at the point where I can spot it and circumvent it before it becomes an issue. (Well, some of the time...I still get surprised.)

The same predictability applies to training. There were some courses where you anticipate not only questions that emerge from natural human thought process, but also the flaws in your own capabilities. For instance, there are certain concepts that I always stumble over when I teach them. Just before I do the aforementioned stumbling, I will find myself giving the disclaimer, "I'm about the screw this up, so bear with me..." and then I bumble on down the path and maybe I get it right, maybe not.

Back to food -- if you put escargot in front of me at home, I'd probably gag a bit. However, put me at a nice wine tasting in a historic house with peacocks roaming the lawn and I might foray into it. Add to that scenario that I have just gotten lost getting to the place, which led to an angry argument with Ryan about event preparation, laziness, dragging him to the event, and then watched him embarrassingly highlight my faults in front of our friends...and that escargot tastes really, really good.

Wait...maybe it's not irrationality...but am I just a shallow, bitter, revengeful person? Haha, my reader, I read your mind and I demand you stop thinking those nasty thoughts! Shame on you! I'm nice!

Anyhow, time to plan the menu for tonight and this week. The house is fairly clean (still cluttered a bit) and I really have no desire to do a whole lot of outdoor activity. It is going to be in the 70s today so that plan might backfire on me!

Tschüß!