Followed by a wall shadow

The other afternoon I went into the kitchen to top up my iced tea and noticed an interesting shadow on the wall.

Sun was reflecting off the rear window of an SUV in the cluster parking lot, and the rays outlined a shoot of one of the shrubs in my front yard. I thought it was pretty.

It’s Friday, folks. In August. That’s all I got today.

Not grapes of wrath

Back in March I heard a story on NPR about vineyard owners near the Klondike fire in Oregon last year getting stiffed by California wineries whose owners said they wouldn’t buy the 2018 harvest as contracted because the grapes had been tainted by smoke. These growers had survived the fire, but were still going to lose a lot, so it was not very short of miraculous that a bunch of Oregonian wineries banded together to buy the grapes, get them harvested and make them into wines under the Solidarity label.

Something about that story prompted me to go on the Cellar 503 website and order a three-pack of the wines, due out late this summer. They weren’t particularly cheap, but I thought that if I could help out these guys and get some wine in return, why not?

Also, I really like Willamette Valley pinots, so I reckoned the chances were good that I wouldn’t be disappointed.

Then, of course, I forgot all about it—it’s been quite the five months.

Well, lookee what arrived yesterday:

I can’t say I know anything about the Rogue Valley wines, but I’m looking forward to learning. And I’m glad I was able to support the effort, even in a small way.

Neighborhood walk

I was killing some time before a doctor’s appointment yesterday and took a walk around what I suppose passes for beautiful downtown McLean. A couple of observations:

The 7-Eleven in question is smack next to a Starbucks. I expect it’s at least a regional promotion, this dollar coffee, but I did wonder how effective it is against the juggernaut next door's attractions.

Also, this was interesting: “$1 coffee; all sizes”. The last time I recall getting coffee from a 7-Eleven was about 16 years ago, on my way to Lancaster, Penn., so my memory is hazy as to whether it was any good. But who’s going to pay a buck for a small coffee when that same dollar will buy you an extra-large bucket-o-caffeine?

Also—I don’t care how much coffee you can get for whatever bargain price: I’m not downloading another scrape-my-data app onto my mobile. End of.

 The other objet trouvé was this pair of sandals, very neatly placed next to the parking lot of the doctor’s building:

What’s the story behind that, I wonder?

Home improvement

So, this came across my Twitter feed a couple of days ago:

I understand that apartments in Paris are expensive, and that you’d want to make every square meter count, but…

Non.

Gratitude Monday: cooling off

We’re definitely in the Dog Days here in the District They Call Columbia. It is the second half of August, after all, and this is only to be expected. We’ve got temps in the 90s and humidity right up there alongside. Whatever gullywashers of storms we get don’t ever seem to break the heat.

Summer is the price we pay, after all, for the glories of Spring and Autumn.

So here are two things I’m grateful for today: central air conditioning and ice. My bog-standard fridge-freezer doesn’t have an ice maker, and I grumble about having to fill ice trays like my ancestors did. But being able to drink ice-cold beverages in a cooled house on hot days is a wondrous thing, and I’m deeply thankful for it.

Growing things

Since late May, I’ve tried two pots of basil out in my yard. Both of them have ended like this:

I don’t know what’s eating them, but I wish whoever it is would stop. I’m not growing this stuff for lacy beauty; I want herbs for caprese salad and tomato mayonnaise and salade Niçoise.

Iacta alea est

I spent three hours yesterday interviewing for a product management position for an industry leader in cyber security. It’s my aspirational job in my aspirational company in my aspirational industry.

A lot of people helped me with this. Encouragement, support, connections. Less than 24 hours after I sent the job details and the names of the hiring manager and recruiter to the fellow I “met” on Twitter, I had an email from the recruiter to set up a call, and the hiring manager had viewed my LinkedIn profile. That was literally two weeks ago.

(And I was able to find that information on the hiring manager and the recruiter because of a connection I made (also through someone on Twitter) with someone who works in the company. Both of these have been unstinting in their encouragement. Rob and Dave—you guys totally rock.)

In those two weeks, I’ve spoken with six people on the phone, despite last week being Black Hat (huge industry conference), and then they pulled together the interview with three of them who are locally based yesterday. Every single conversation I’ve had has been invigorating and I felt extraordinarily comfortable talking with these people. The challenge they need help with is exactly the sort of thing I love and I get the feeling that my colleagues would be welcoming and supportive.

Friends have counseled me on my interview attire; I bought a skirt and practiced wearing real shoes. (I’ve basically worn nothing but trainers for a couple of years.) I even wore makeup, which I scrubbed off the instant I got home. (The hair, however—well, it’s August in the District They Call Columbia. My bad hair day will not end until late September.) The air between GMT and PDT pulsed with the positive energy people were sending me, and I went into this interview absolutely #playingtowin.

Next steps are that they'll confer and get back to me "shortly". So now—like those folks in Casablanca—we wait…

UPDATE: Recruiter called me to reported, “so far I’ve had positive feedback”, which is what he’s said after each of the calls I had with the team. So still waiting, but there’s an exit visa about.

At last

Saturday I went to the People’s Republic’s farmers market to pick up some bits and bobs for Sunday’s dinner. This included blueberries for the pavlovas. And here’s something that I’ve not seen before:

A hairnet for berry punnets.

Now, this is what I call innovation—solving a real problem for real people. If you try to carry home any kind of berry in open containers, they jump out all over the place. And even if you empty the punnet into a plastic bag, the berries get squashed.

This is brilliant.

Yes we have no

Here’s something I thought was…interesting. They were selling bananas at my local Target:

I don’t judge.

Gratitude Monday: dinner with friends

A few weeks ago, I unpacked my good china. For five years it sat in a dish-pack in a Sunnyvale garage. I briefly unpacked it when I moved to Arlington, but never used it before it went back into a carton for the move to the People’s Republic, where it sat in a closet for more than two years.

Once it was out, however, I realized I now have enough plates to invite people over for dinner. I also dug around and found my serving dishes; yay! So last night I hosted three friends for a summer meal—chicken, squash, salad and pavlovas. I’m still working out the technical details of sourdough baguettes, so I had a backup from the farmers market. I’m a girl who likes redundant systems.

Today I’m grateful that finally clearing out that carton inspired me to invite friends to come over for supper and discussion. I’ve missed this.