3/30/2015 What Is Missing in the Workplace Today, Hand + Foot

Aleathia says:

Anyone that knows me knows for sure that Hand + Foot is my favorite place in Corning.  It isn't just because the food is fantastic....and it is.  The chef and his team put out amazing food everyday and it is consistently good which I can't say for a lot of other restaurants in the area.  JP takes special pride in the food he puts out and we always love when he is working in the kitchen.

It isn't just the great beer and booze selection that I love.  It is the knowledge of the bartenders (Charlie, Matthew, Kurtis) and staff (Erin, Laurel, Caleb) who do their best to try everything so they can describe it for you and help you step up your drinking game as well as help you get out of your narrow window of acceptable tastes.  They remember what we order from the times we have come in before and are quick to recommend beers and bourbon they think we will enjoy and they have been spot on every time.

It isn't just the cozy atmosphere that I love.  It is the long communal table of light wood, the exposed brick, the great music, the sound of conversations and laughter that fill the bar.  It is people singing. It is life happening.

This is the first time in my entire life that I look forward to going to a bar.  I have always hated them because they were pretentious or too dark or full of people using the space as a meat market.  This place makes me happy.  I always learn something when I am there.  I always have a good time.  I always leave there wanting to come back.

Last night we had a date night.  The kiddo was at her dad's and we both had off work (finally) so we went for dinner and a drink.  It never ends with one drink, but that is because we love being there.  It is our place.

We sat enjoying the music and the bourbon when I saw something wonderful, something missing from the workplace today.  The owners made a special Sunday dinner for their staff.  Laurie was back there for hours making a beautiful pork roast and vegetables.  The owner!!  These owners work their tails off making Hand + Foot a wonderful place.  They love their staff.  They take care of them and in return they pour their hearts into making this bar a destination.  When tourist seasons starts I can only hope to find a square inch for myself.  It is going to be packed.

I grew up in a restaurant.  I started working at my grandfather's place when I was 12 years old.  I would go there after school on Friday's and peel shrimp, roll napkins, prepare side salads, do dishes and whatever else was needed.  I got paid $5 and given dinner.  It wasn't the money that mattered but the fact that I participated and learned something.  I belonged.  After I left there I worked here in Corning at Boomer's in the kitchen.  I was proud of the food we made there.  It was tough work in a small space, but it was what I loved.  Later in life I worked at a deli in Seattle and then was a baker at The Urban Bakery on the lake as well as another place on Phinney Ridge.  I worked at Starbucks in both Atlanta and Seattle.  I have slung hams at Honey-baked Hams.  I have worked at an Asian-British fusion Tea House.  Most of my life has been spent feeding people.  Now, I save lives, but I often miss the restaurant business.  It is brutal, but slightly more thankful than what I do now.

I commend Dan and Laurie at Hand + Foot for treating their employees like they do.  I never once in my life had an experience like I saw last night.  I almost teared up at the bar, because it gave me faith in small business and in my community.  I need to see those things once in awhile.  We need to see that more often as humans.

Support local businesses whenever you can, wherever you are.  These people need you to keep their businesses alive and to offer their perspective of the world.

3/26/2015 The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Free Books

Aleathia says:

There are tons of links that drop in my Facebook news feed and generally I just let them pass by. Today someone posted a link stating that the Metropolitan Museum of Art was offering 422 books from their collection....for FREE!  Sometimes free seems too good to be true.

In my curiosity, I decided to check it out and low and behold you really can get 422 books for free. You can read them online, download the PDF, or even print them out.  These books were written about collections they had featured in the past.  Mind you the most recent books are not available for free but knowing about this collection is pretty important if you are an art nerd.  There is a wealth of knowledge in these books which span so many time frames and art tastes.


Bloom

Caspar David Friedrich

The Ceaseless Century: Three Hundred Years of 18th Century Costume

Contemporary Ceramics

Degas, 1834-1917


Seriously....I could go on forever about some awesome work in this collection.  Stop by and have a look at what they offer.  Free is free!!

3/25/2015 Parenting Surprises

Aleathia says:

Yesterday the sun was shining and it was actually warm enough where I didn't have to wear a coat, hat and scarf.  It has been a damn long winter and any flash of light is pretty pleasing.

I picked up my kid from her Robotics Club after school and she was abuzz about how they learned to program the dance moves that the robot would do and how they had picked a portion of the 1812 Overture as well as some new music from Imagine Dragons to splice together.  Next week they will learn how to program their dance moves together to sync up with the music and make that robot get funky.

We laughed together as we were both clacking....me from espresso and her from sugar.  We had a full on squirrel moment and couldn't stop laughing.  I have to say all those people who said that having a teenager would suck, lied.  Maybe they just can't remember what it was like to be a teenager.  That, my friends, is sad.

When I went to the local coffee shop to get my espresso I saw several of Chloe's classmates there.  They were in a gaggle which is typical for teenage girls and all had their smart phones and Vera Bradley bags and trendy clothes.  For a minute my heart sort of sunk.  I had a huge amount of doubt about what kind of life my daughter was leading.  She didn't have friends like this.  She doesn't go to coffee shops and talk about boys or clothes or shoes.  In some way I felt like a parenting failure because she seems so outside the box.

That changed when I picked her up from Robotics.  That changed when she asked me to go for a walk with her and we talked about real life and dreams and our plans for a fun summer.  Half way through the walk I told her about what I had seen at the coffee shop (leaving out the doubt and guilt part) and she stopped me in my tracks.  She told me that she felt I was a really cool mom even though I had to punish her sometimes and make rules.  She said at least she knows that I support her in her own identity and style and that I am nice to her and listen to what she has to say.

I really had to keep myself from crying.  It is a rare moment that a mother gets a validation like this with no strings attached.  She didn't want anything from me except my company on a fine spring day.

I love that all these years of talking to her like a human being instead of a little kid has paid off.  She is growing up into a wonderful, very outside the box, young lady.  She is kind and artistic and funny.  She is sensitive, but also learning to thicken up her skin so she doesn't get hurt by the evil that lingers in middle school and high school.

I thanked her for being patient with me as I learn to let go of control of everything and deal with her need for independence and freedom.  She knows it is the hardest thing in the world for me to do and she could have rebelled and cut me to the quick with meanness and hatred, but instead, she waited until I was ready to deal with it in my own time.  It feels really good to be a mother and to see that all the long, hard years spent expressing morals and values have rooted to make a great base for my child as she moves forward in the world.

Cherish the great days as well as the hard days.  There are lessons in each of them and joys within the sorrows if you look at them right.

3/22/2015 Cutting the Cord

Aleathia says:

It has been awhile since I posted, but there have been busy nights at work, exhausted mornings, hangovers, a sick kid, and spring cleaning.  A girl only has so much time in a day, right?  Mixed in with all of this was bill paying.

Every time I grab my cable bill I want to vomit.  We have a bundle and it runs over $200 a month.  It is sickening really.  We pay for a home phone that we don't use now that Chloe has her own phone and we rarely watch the cable except for news, Walking Dead, and the background noise of Pickers or Pawn Stars.  Frankly, it is a waste of money.  I mentioned it again this week and with us being a fairly media driven family it met with some resistance.  There has to be other options out there.

So with a bit of investigation on Michael's part we have been trying out a "cable free" weekend.  We recently purchased the Amazon Prime Fire Stick which has a lot of great streaming options...especially nerdy PBS documentaries and shows of that nature.

We downloaded Hulu Plus for a free trial as well as Sling TV.  We have also had Netflix for a long time. All of these options use the internet only for their function.  I have to say that we successfully made it through the weekend without even a hint of needing cable.

Sling TV is very new and just launched in February.  It can be a bit clunky if you don't have high speed internet or if you have unapproved side apps loaded to your Fire Stick.  Once we removed those side apps we had one hiccup in 3 days.  That is pretty damn good.  On Sling TV you can watch shows in real time as long it is on a network they offer.  There are packages you can buy for $5 a month which include sports, movies, and kids channels.  They have recently acquired a slew of History Channel shows as well.  This, my friends, is the wave of the future.

Hulu Plus is probably the gem of the bunch though.  It has Criterion Collection, great old shows from childhood, as well as ongoing new shows.  We have watch TV this weekend mostly.  We are pretty impressed with the selection they offer.  The kiddo is in heaven with more anime than she ever knew existed.  This is a family pleasing streaming site.

I'm hoping that this puts an end to the long periods of scrolling through a million cable channels to find something to watch.  It will also save us $100 a month on our bill which we can put towards a nice family vacation.  Getting older sometimes means making life more simple and approaching it from a smarter stand point.  Summer is coming and I am hoping to not be in front of the TV anyway. There will be nights we lounge in the air conditioning and binge on shows....hell there might be super hot days we do that too, but all in all it will feel better than cable.

People that are giving up cable for streaming options are known as "cord cutters".  We kind of like the sound of that.  It makes us feel a bit nostalgic for our rebellious days...even if it is just ousting cable.  It is like not being a slave to the man in a way.  Bucking the system.  Check it out.

3/15/2015 Books on Tape

Aleathia says:

I have never been a fan of books on tape or books in any form other than the traditional sense of a book.  The thought of it felt like cheating.  If you didn't read the book then it didn't count.  If you don't read the words then they mean less.  This sort of thinking comes from being young and possibly snobby.  I will forever be a book in hand kind of girl.  There is no other wonderful feeling (besides love) than how the binding of a book rests in your hands, the sound of pages turning, the smell of ink and paper, and the pleasure of closing the book at the end knowing you completed a journey.  I cannot get behind the Kindle revolution.  I just can't.

Having said that I am reconsidering books on tape.  This week I was walking past the audio book section and I found myself wandering down the aisle.  What could I possibly find down here in this tiny section?  What I did find is a shit ton of Shakespeare.  I have only ever been able to appreciate his work once in high school when the entire class had to have a part in Macbeth and we read it aloud.  When I try to read plays by myself there is a certain kind of chaos and insanity that happens in my brain.  I have to have different voices for each character in order to understand it and frankly I look like a person with split personality disorder trying to read a play.  It makes me frustrated and then I put it down and have that bad yucky Shakespeare taste in my mouth.  Who wants that?

Today, while I was on the floor trying to fix the vacuum, it came to me.  How is an audio book any less than a book?  What if I were blind, would the content of the book mean any less to me if I listen to it or if I read it in braille?  Wouldn't I want to be able to have books read to me when I am old and can't see so good?  Didn't we all love when our parents would read us books when we were children? They were OUR books on tape right there in our beds.

So this week I celebrate growing up and opening my book snob borders to the likes of audio books.  First on my list.....The Merchant of Venice.

3/13/2015 When You Least Expect It

Aleathia says:

I woke up this morning sort of dreading it.  I was up at the crack of dawn for the second day in a row. WTF?  My body hurt like hell with the loss of those few extra hours of sleep, but I rolled out into the 20 degree morning to walk the dog.

The blessings started here.

I watched the most amazing sunrise from my yard.  Watched as it bathed the shimmering snow in orange hues.  The dog stood there with me like he understood what it was all about.  When you stop to watch the sunrise you get the opportunity to swim in the insanity that is the universe.  Oh yeah, that giant ball of fire, we rotate around that.  And though it is millions of miles away we see its like and feel its heat.  Doesn't that blow your mind?

I continued walking the dog and was blessed again by the alley not being an ice skating rink.  My back and poor old Marshall's could not handle another day of trying to look graceful and defying the laws of gravity while on slippery surfaces.  Also he didn't stand and stiff another dogs poop all morning or lick pee off the telephone pole.  This was a win-win walk.  I said my morning prayers while we walked and felt strangely lighter than when I started.

Chloe and I had to drive 40 minutes to get her braces checked.  It is a dreadful long time to have someone stick their fingers in her mouth for 5 minutes and send you on your way.  This time it was great news.  Large rubber bands off for a month and if everything stays where it is, then braces off in May!  And as of this morning, her father had paid her braces payments off in full.  I was pretty surprised actually.

We left there and went to lunch at Cracker Barrel and then off to JoAnn's to pick out her fabric for the apron I am going to make her.  We came home and I walked the dog again.  She played computer and I took a much needed afternoon nap with the sun peaking in the windows while lying on the couch.

The best part of the day was not how well all of these things unfurled but the most wonderful day I had with my 13 year old.  If you are a parent or if you remember being a teenager, then you know this is the time when teenager's stop wanting you in their business.  They don't think you are right about anything and they certainly don't want to be seen with you in public.  Chloe is generally not like this but she has been making moves for more independence and as hard as it is for me to let go, I know it is the best thing to do.

Our ride down to the orthodontist, the ride back, the lunch, the fabric store and the ride home were filled with ACTUAL CONVERSATION.  We talked about the present and about finding out her identity in the world.  We talked about the future.  I wanted to impart upon her how important it really is to find a job in life that makes you happy and that you feel good about doing because you will spend a very large part of your precious time on Earth at that job.  I also talked about college being something she should take advantage of when she knows what she wants to do.  I had many failed attempts and periods of adventure in between before I landed on my career at age 27.  I shared stories about my life that I had not been able to share before this time.  We talked about the real reasons her father and I divorced.  We talked about fashion and music and movies.

She shared her perspective on these things and I have learned in these times it is best to keep my judgments to myself and listen.  I think we don't do that enough for teenagers....really listen and let them know that their opinions and ideas matter and are valid, but that they should also not discredit their parents breadth of knowledge and experience when advice is given.  We talked about the importance of failure and not being perfect.  We all must fall to find out how strong we are.  We have to know what it feels like to pull ourselves up to find out what we are made of.

It has been a pretty awesome day.  F**k you Friday the 13th.  Pfffft.

3/10/2015 You Are NOT Special

Aleathia says:

I am sheer pages from finishing "Curious" so in honor of that I have picked up another non-fiction book to go in its place.  As it seems, these books are picking me by title alone.  There is something adventurous about choosing a book in which you have no preconcieved idea of what the contents are about.  Life is full of small mysteries.  You should exploit them when you can.

The book "You are NOT Special" by David McCullough, Jr. jumped out at me.  The size of the book is smaller than average and who is not intrigued by that title?  Who dare say that we are not special?!!

I have read the foreword and this book stemmed from a graduation speech given to his students in 2012.  He meant it as a farewell and good luck....as something the students could use as they were moving out on their own into this great big world.  It was 12 minutes long.  Someone posted it to the internet and McCullough was inundated with responses from all over the world, across all cultures.

We are living in a world where we micromanage our children.  I know this to be true of myself in some cases and in the last year since my mother died I have been trying to whoa it back some.  If I plan out my child's every move, every day...when does she get to figure out who she is?  When does she get to fail and pull herself up from that?  Experience, both good and bad, are a part of life and it is the hard points in our life that really do build our character.  Those times teach us to rely on ourselves and to persevere.  If we bubble wrap our kids then we set them up for failure no matter how good our intentions are to give them a "good life".

Here is a passage from the foreword:

"Today's teenagers are, too many of them, unwitting victims of their parents' good intentions--or passive agents of their parents' vanity, or pawns to their parents' insecurities, or anxieties, or limited imaginations.  They've become showpieces in an arms race to impress admissions officers, and thereby the Joneses, and perpetuate the legacy of privilege.  The competition is, after all, stiff out there.  And from atop the stepladder of often considerable resources, kids can look pretty tall, and absolutely the view from up there can be wonderfully enriching.  Too often, though, their privileges are unwisely expended, in my view, and serve to promote, however inadvertently, swelling narcissism, assumptions of entitlement, superficial and/or robotic thinking.  Empathy withers. Maturation is slowed or halted altogether.  Self reliance dies in the bud.  And the anxious parent feels compelled to intercede once again."--David McCullough Jr


It is hard to look yourself in the mirror and know that on some level you do this to your children, that I do this to my child.  I grew up in a somewhat hostile environment with little supervision.  I am a survivor and one that can pull myself up, but I was also very scared and lonely all the time.  It was hard to make decisions because I was never sure what sort of punishment would be at the end of them.  My mother held high potential in me despite her never having graduated high school and this created a severe anxiety in me about always coming out on top.  I needed to be perfect in everything I did or I wasn't living up to my potential, or I wasn't worth loving.  This was how I felt in high school. This notion followed me around in my adult life until about 4 years ago when Michael changed my personal perspective and my boss Andrea changed my professional perspective.  They believed in me.  They loved me for who I am and for my natural abilities that I was afraid to showcase for fear of being judged too harshly and for fear of failing and being a disappointment.

This is the last thing I would ever want for my kid, but in some strange undercurrent it is something that we have done.  I have been backing off but her father is so hard on her.  She talks about fear and anxiety every time she gets a grade less than 84 because he shames her and takes away the things that make her happy.  What?  She doesn't want me to say anything because she believes it will make things worse.  She was in tears the other day.  I feel bad for her, but I told her that she will have to beat him at his own game.  We discussed reverse psychology and other defense mechanisms that might be going on.  Her father wasted his chance to go to college and have a career, twice, and I believe that he is so afraid she will do the same that he doesn't give her a chance to be her own person.  All I can do is support her at home.  I tried for 16 years to win that battle with her father before giving up. Sometimes you have to make your own way and have a leap of faith.

I can't wait to dig in to this new book.  Reading is fundamental!

3/7/2015- Adverse Childhood Experience

Aleathia says:

I often listen to TED presentations while I am folding laundry.  I can just put one or two on and go about my business.  Sometimes they are just interesting tidbits, but other times they really make me think.  It has been over a week since I listened to the TED on Adverse Childhood Experiences.

The idea behind it is that children who are exposed to persistent adverse conditions will have a drastically increased risk of cancer, heart disease and diabetes as well as mental disorders.  Large scale studies have followed children through adult hood and what is found is that even if these children lead "normal" lifestyles, they are still physically at risk for the major disease that kill most of our country.

The basic theory is that all humans are born with the innate ability to rev up for fight or flight in dangerous or adverse situations.  This means that our adrenal glands are activated, our heart races, our breathing is faster, and our senses heightened should we need to defend ourselves or run very quickly.  This is meant to be a less often used part of our genetic make up.  Children who live in a household with parents or family members who have mental illness or substance abuse can activate this fight or flight on a daily basis.  The activation of these defense mechanisms causes increased stress on the body, more so than is healthy, and can cause developmental problems as well as social and physical problems.

Being a nurse this is very interesting to me.  How many people fall through the cracks because the right questions have not been asked or they have not been looked at outside of the possibility of mental disorder?  It is also interesting to me because I am a high risk person according to my ACE score which is 7 out of 10.

My own health scheme starts to make some sense.  I had Rheumatoid Arthritis by the age of 18, my thyroid went bad by 33, and I started having hypertension by age 40.  I suffer from anxiety that sometimes develops into panic attacks.  I had an eating disorder in high school and suffered from periods of severe depression.

In my household I grew up with a mother who was herself abused and often verbally abusive to me. She was an alcoholic and a drug addict.  My stepfather was an untreated bi-polar.  I never knew what I was going to get on any given day.

I am in no way feeling sorry for myself, but I did wonder why I had so many health problems when I did not live that kind of reckless life my parents did.  Knowing this information does reinforce the need to reduce the stress in my life.  It also explains maybe why it is so hard for me to relax and why I may have unconsciously chosen to place myself in high stress situations.  My body got used to high levels of adrenaline all the time.  I was used to being in fight or flight mode persistently.

I am posting this because I hope the medical community starts to look at patients differently.  How could we better serve our community?  How could we change the face of prevention in light of this knowledge?  It is something to think about.

3/6/2015 Sydney Long, painter

Aleathia says:

Ha.  I go and change the format and still end up posting art on Friday.  You may find that I post art most days with some literature, humanity, and music tossed in for fun.

I am an avid Pintrest idiot.  I LOVE it.  It is sort of like being Sherlock Holmes.  You click on one art piece you like and it leads you to more like it and so on.  There is a woman from Brazil who is apparently my doppleganger in the Pintrest world as we like nearly all the same sorts of things.  Even when I try not to pin what she has, I can't help but really, really like the things she brings to the table.

Today's artist comes from a Pintrest post.  I am learning of so many artists I never knew existed.  The art world is so vast and layered and unless you are an art history major it would be very difficult to know each movement and sub movements in all the countries.  My local library has art books but of the most famous which I am familiar.  It doesn't feed my need for new visuals.  So I am not ashamed to have found this lovely painter on a social media gathering place.  Please enjoy.

Sydney Long 1871-1955 was an Australian painter.  His works depicted the bounty of nature and the humans that lived among it.  His color palate and some of his style is Art Nouveau but not as succinct as say Mucha.  It is more ethereal and hazy and dreamy.  If you would like to read about his education and awards then have at his link, but my main purpose is to present the visual beauty that is his work.

"Sadder Than a Single Star that Sets at Twilight"

"Fantasy"

"Pan"

"Spirit of the Plains"

"Old Sydney"

"The West Wind"

"Flamingoes"

"Harborside Figure"

STOP!! HAMMER TIME!- 3/5/2015

Aleathia says:

Every once in awhile I wake up.  I'm not talking the open your eyes in the morning, but really WAKING UP.  I love those moments when I learn something about myself that has been staring me in the face for nearly a year.

I started this blog in a time of great grief and despair.  Everything required very detailed organization. Only certain types of information could be shared on this day or that day and a post needed to happen every day.  I invited people to join me but under these strict, overbearing guidelines. As the months have moved forward I have started to wonder why no one is posting anymore, even me.

Some days I find a great piece of art or hear a song that gets my groove going and think "hell, I can't post this because it isn't Art Bomb Friday".  Really? REALLY?

What I realized was that I was trying to be creative whilst also trying to keep myself from falling apart.  But now that I feel like I have a grasp on the grief I experienced I am looking at this blog space in a completely different way.  By restricting information to certain days I was stifling not only my creativity but those I had invited.  I thank goodness that those people still talk to me and hopefully don't think I am a wicked control freak.  I mean....they wouldn't be ALL wrong.

So from this point forward The Forked Road is just going to be a collection of cool shit that people think of.  There are no bounds to it, no rules, no strict Berlin Wall to scale to have a little blog dog fun.

Welcome to the new and improved, totally free for all Forked Road.  Here is to hoping my blogmates jump back in the game.  Sorry for being a dictator.  Let's do this.