Photo Friday: Back in the Saddle

Tonight I baked for the first time with my stand mixer dragged out of storage.  I used my Hummingbird Bakery cookbook, which I haven’t used since I was in the UK.  An interesting mixture of my old US kitchen supplies and my British recipe and techniques.

So far so good!

Next step – icing!

Silence

Sorry for the quiet.  I’ve been without any internet or cable at home all this week.  The silence is punctuated by me yelling at the Charter Communications people on the phone.  Evidently both cable/internet service and the truth are beyond their grasp.  So far I’ve made 7 calls in 3 days – each answer I’ve gotten has been a lie.  My conclusion is that they want me to stay home indefinitely in case they decide at some point to come and take a look at the problem, but there’s probably nothing they can do.

And here in the great United States of America were corporate competition is the law of the land, they have no competition.  If I want internet or cable I have to pay their outrageous charges and get no service.

Sigh

Update – Last night I went home planning on doing lots of reading, since Charter had said there would be no service to some undetermined date.  I was sitting in my sunroom when a Charter truck pulled up.  It was a repair person they said didn’t exist.  While investigating the problem, he discovered that the guy who installed it a month ago had made a mess of things, which is why I’ve had mediocre internet service and random cable outages.

The moral of this story?  Evidently, call Charter often and be a real pain about it.  It was on the 7th call that something got done.  I’m very thankful to have my cable and internet back, but not very excited that it takes that much effort to get any attention.

Photo Saturday: That Time

What time is it?

Over the Top

One of my guilty pleasures is Grey’s Anatomy.  I don’t always get to see it (particularly during the months when I didn’t have a television), but it’s usually pretty easy to pick up the plot.

Last night was a season finale.  However,  I really wasn’t sure it was Grey’s.  The camera work on the accident scenes was amateurish (perhaps intentionally) and the writing was horrible.

The basics (for those who didn’t watch) are that there was a group of 6 doctors flying on a small plane from Seattle to Idaho for some super operation.  The episode opens with the doctors scattered in the woods after the crash.  All have gory looking wounds and at least one dies in the emotionally over done episode.   Back at Seattle Grace there’s the usual drama and no one seems to notice that the doctors never reached their destination, performed the surgery, or come back.

The best part is Christina wandering around the wreckage muttering about how over-dramatic Seattle Grace is and goes through all the season finale cliffhangers of the last few years – shootings, characters being hit by buses, cut LVAT wires and anything else Shonda Rimes can pull out of her head.  The writers clearly are aware of the crazy, and yet they keep doing it.

But as I thought about it I realized what the whole thing reminded me of – one of those afternoon soaps everyone makes fun of.

I got up this morning expecting the critics to pan the horrible writing and how far over the top Grey’s has gone.  Nope.  They loved it.

Must just be me.

Quiet by Susan Cain

When I first saw some promotion for the book Quiet by Susan Cain I was cautiously optimistic.  The subtitle, “The Power of Introverts in a World that Won’t Stop Talking” was intriguing.  As an introvert and as someone who has taught on personality differences and communication I hoped that this would be more than a bit of fluff.

I was pleased to see that the book sparked so much interest and I really enjoyed Cain’s talk at TED.  However, I held back on reading the book because, well, 6 months of unemployment is hard on the pocketbook.  I would read it eventually.

Then I started my new job and discovered that my boss is an introvert.  Then that same boss mentioned Quiet three times in a two week period and particularly in regards to management style.  Clearly, reading this book went up my list of priorities, so I bought it.

I loved this book.  While I initially bought it to understand what my boss was reading and agreeing with (and it was very useful on that front), I found it tremendously helpful for me.  I’ve known I was an introvert for years, but I didn’t know about highly sensitive people (which I clearly am – watch me cringe when a phone rings).  And I hadn’t given much thought to the way introverts have been pushed out of so many mainstream activities.  I just assumed you adapted.  I hadn’t given any thought to how the evangelical church forces people to ‘act extroverted’ and how some other areas of the church are more comfortable with a contemplative model.  Given that I had just been put on a church leadership development team, the book couldn’t have come at a better time.

The book also made me think a lot about how I (and others) have made that adaption to an extroverted world.  I remember being in junior high (a hellish environment for anyone, let alone an introvert) and deciding that I wanted to be a journalist.  Someone pointed out to me that you couldn’t be a journalist if you were afraid to talk to people.  So I, in my usual goal oriented way, joined the school debating club and signed up for every public speaking opportunity available.  I learned to speak well in public.  I learned to speak off the top of my head.  I learned to research carefully and form a well thought out argument.  And I found out that there was a whole other personality lurking under my skin that I could pull out when I was safely on a stage and behind a microphone.  That personality was a great speaker, able to engage people, make eye contact and communicate a message.

What was interesting to me as I read the book was that developing those abilities was instinctive to me.  I knew what I needed to do to succeed and I did it.  But then that survival tactic masked some of my natural introversion.  No, I don’t shy away from public speaking opportunities.  No, I’m not afraid to share an opinion.  I love to teach and be at the front of a classroom.  However, I really am an extreme introvert and each time I do those things there is a cost in terms of energy.

As an introvert I found this book extremely helpful.  It helped me understand myself and why I do things the way I do.  It also helped me understand others around me, particularly those who did not go to such extreme measures to develop a mask of extroversion.

I really think that extroverts would enjoy this book as well.  It gives a lot of insight into you introverted kids, neighbors, family members, spouses, co-workers and friends.  It will help you as you communicate with people that may be a mystery to you.  And it will help you create situations where people who aren’t like you are able to be comfortable.

I think every teacher, pastor, friend, parent….  hmmmm, this is a long list.  I think everyone would benefit from reading this book and I think an honest discussion is necessary.  Why must the pendulum swing from quiet reading in schools to big group projects?  Why do people assume open plan offices are a good idea?  Why do we all assume that people aren’t like us are flawed?  How can we create learning, working, worshiping, social and family environments that are supportive to both introverts and extroverts?

Read the book.  Let me know what you think?

Home Front

Frankly, I had never heard of Kristin Hannah before returning to the US last autumn.  All of a sudden her books were everywhere.  I guess I made certain assumptions based on the covers’ pastel colors and pretty scenes.

A couple of weeks ago I came across her latest, Home Front, at the library and decided to give it a read.  At worst I could put it down after a day or two.  At best, I might pick up a new author for lighter reading.

As I started to read the book I realized that I really didn’t want to like this book.  Hannah’s writing was rather trite (she always goes for the obvious phrasing) and the subject was made for tv movie schmaltzy.  Jolene survives a difficult childhood and manages to make it into adulthood with a relatively upbeat attitude, a husband, two children and a career in the National Guard.

Then her marriage starts to fall apart.  Then she’s called up to active duty in Iraq.  Then bad things happen.

Seriously, I could have told you the whole book based on a few sentences on the fly leaf.  And yet, there I was 50 pages in crying as I read.  Yes, it’s obvious.  Yes, the writing is mediocre.  Yes, the plot hits all the predictable emotional hot spots.  But yes, I still cried.  More than once.

Home Front is not a great book, but it’s a pretty good read.  The soapy emotional stuff is nothing new, but the coverage of post-traumatic stress disorder and the stress on the family when a mother goes into active duty was interesting and enlightening.  Hannah manages to resolve all the dramatic tension in trite ways, but I guess that’s to be expected in this type of a book.

I can’t say I’d highly recommend the book, but I would say that it wasn’t as bad as I expected.  I got involved in the story and the characters and ended up wiping away tears reading the book at the laundromat.

Photo Sunday: View

This is the beautiful view from my front yard.