foolish_m0rtal | Week of Nov 29

I used to journal regularly, which was incredibly useful if I wanted to reference an event I attended or people I met. I figured returning to old habits might help me get over this recent emotional/mental slump. I had a similar chasm open up under me 7 years ago and came back mentally and creatively stronger for it, so there's some hope?

This was Thanksgiving week. Because the stock market is open on Black Friday, those of us in the financial sector don't get the day off. This means I haven't been able to spend Thanksgiving with my family in Virginia since 2012, because there's no point flying from Boston to Virginia just for one day. However, after a few years of working for this company, I caught on that you don't really get a pat on the back for showing up, because no one is in the office anyway. I still didn't get reasonable airfare to visit family, but at least I got 4 days off, (Thu, Fri, and then the weekend) which is the longest vacation I've had this year.

Usually my coworkers invite me to their house for Thanksgiving, and this year was no exception. This was an Indian family from my part of India, which was nice. Some of their food was "throw all the American spices at this and see what sticks", which was a bit hit or miss, but they were very fun and welcoming and taught me how to play poker. As always, I showed up with the 3 items I always bring when invited to Thanksgiving (I'll make a list of old recipes that I've made in the past in another post): a savoury dish, a sweet dish, and beer. This time I relied on smitten kitchen and made cauliflower gratin, mom's apple cake, and a local beer from Somerville. (Slumbrew)

When I went into the local liquor store to pick up beer (MA doesn't sell alcohol in their grocery stores), the nice retired biker who runs the place had apparently taken off his shirt to show off his multitude of tatoos to some women. I laughed for the first time in weeks.

Friday was incredibly warm, so I walked 3 miles out to the wetlands and then backtracked to do 6 miles on the Minuteman trail. Later, I was invited for an "open house" to another co-workers house, a nice elder gentleman whose husband unfortunately passed a way a few years ago, and he had a few casserole dishes and bottles of wine for friends and family who were invited to stop by anytime in the evening. I really love this idea! Might implement it on a weekend afternoon next month, in lieu of doing an evening event for my birthday. No one really wants to go out and come back during the cold dark of January.

I've been kind of useless this weekend, haven't done much apart from watching some Netflix and making this chocolate custard. (my modification: 1/4 cup sugar, bittersweet chocolate, 10mL dark rum, 1/8 tsp cinnamon. also, you should add the chocolate along with the cornstarch mixture, otherwise it will take forever to thicken, and when you eventually put it in the fridge, it will come out with the texture of ganache. If that's your thing, be my guest. I spent about 30 minutes stirring the cornstarch-sugar-milk mixture, hoping it would thicken, till I finally lost patience and added the chocolate. I would say cook it 10-15 minutes like the recipe says, but don't worry if it doesn't thicken to a saucelike consistency. Make sure you scrape the bottom when you stir, or you'll get congealed lumps.)

Monday will unfortunately be a return to form. *sigh* Part of me feels that I should have gone somewhere and done something over 2 days, but the other part knows that "doing things" is not equivalent to making progress, and keeping myself busy as a distraction is as detrimental as remaining idle. I suppose I'll find a way to convince myself that I needed the downtime to relax and catch up on sleep.