Just like Sunday, all over again.

Only today, I woke up earlier!

It's *still* raining, though lightly.
I'm *still* home. I know I'm weird, but I really dislike 3-day weekends (especially two in a row)
The house is *still* decorated. I lack the energy and incentive to pull down decorations just yet. Next weekend, after the Feast of the Epiphany, maybe I'll have a reverse-engineering epiphany of my own.

molly_mcb wins, cause I fell asleep on NYE before I even got around to opening my little spilt of orange label Champagne. I made up for it last night, however, and thoroughly enjoyed the delicate bubbly concoction along with brie and bagel chips. That was dinner, YUM! (so much for my attempt to eat properly in the new year).

After sleeping in very late the last two mornings I made myself get up early today. I have to get up real early tomorrow for another crack-of-dawn training call. And so I want to break this sleep-till-11am habit now.

Skimming the news this morning it seems that we're mostly focused on the upcoming Alito hearings, the wildfires in TX and OK and the flooding in Northern California. Today Southern California is getting the brunt of the storm. Sorry, gazellesoncrack! If it's any consolation, my boss is down there drowning for the Rose Bowl Parade.

I'm proud of the fact that I successfully avoided eating black eyed peas (yuck!) However, I was not successful avoiding panicked last minute shoppers on NYE.

I was in Andronico's, my local far-too-expensive-but-cheaper-than-whole-paycheck grocer on Saturday. I was in the vegetable section gathering up avocados, peppers, herbs and mushrooms when this older woman (I'd guess mid 60s) comes dashing up to me and grabs my arm. No 'pardon me, but do you work here?' No 'can you help me?' Just grab and babble.

"Quick, how do you cook these things? There's a vinegar taste to them right? Do I put vinegar in them? What?"

She was waving a bag of fresh-cooked black eyed peas at me as if it were a telegram hot off the presses.

:::run in circles scream and shout:::

Never mind that the crazy ones always find me, no matter where I am. Never mind that I absolutely loath black eyed peas--I think they taste like dirt. I like the way dirt smells. I don't like the way it tastes.

Ohhhh the irony...because I actually do know (somewhat) how to make them, as my father's family--the Texas side, loves black eyed peas. Whether I ate them or not, I always did my turn as cook's helper in the kitchen during the holidays--so long as any one but my mother was cooking.

Taking pity on her I told her how I'd cook them: a little chicken stock, a few dashes of red cider vinegar, some chopped onion and some seeded, diced jalapeno or serrano chili pepper. Then ladle over rice or cornbread.

She then spun me (still a hold of my arm) to look at peppers, how large, how much, why seranno over jalapeno. Well, it depends. How spicy do you like your food?

"I like spice, but I'm not going to eat this stuff."

I stifled a laugh. I left her pondering chili peppers and slipped around the corner to another aisle. It's probably the first holiday potluck she's been invited to in 10 years. At least, in my mind, that would explain the panic in her eyes.

The turning of the year does strange things to some people.

Inspirational Words for the New Year

An idea borrowed from several. I have no pithy truisms to offer during this rainy, blah opening of 2006. So instead I offer a poem that inspires me daily. For the past, oh, 12 years or so it has found a home with me on every fridge, every bulletin board, every cube wall, every place I am. It serves to remind me and reorient me as to my expectations of myself.

PHENOMENAL WOMAN
by Maya Angelou

Pretty women wonder where my secret lies
I'm not cute or built to suit a model's fashion size
But when I start to tell them
They think I'm telling lies.
I say
It's in the reach of my arms
The span of my hips
The stride of my steps
The curl of my lips.
I'm a woman
Phenomenally
Phenomenal woman
That's me.

I walk into a room
Just as cool as you please
And to a man
The fellows stand or
Fall down on their knees
Then they swarm around me
A hive of honey bees.
I say
It's the fire in my eyes
And the flash of my teeth
The swing of my waist
And the joy in my feet.
I'm a woman
Phenomenally
Phenomenal woman
That's me.

Men themselves have wondered
What they see in me
They try so much
But they can't touch
My inner mystery.
When I try to show them
They say they still can't see.
I say
It's in the arch of my back
The sun of my smile
The ride of my breasts
The grace of my style.
I'm a woman
Phenomenally
Phenomenal woman
That's me.

Now you understand
Just why my head's not bowed
I don't shout or jump about
Or have to talk real loud
When you see me passing
It ought to make you proud.
I say
It's in the click of my heels
The bend of my hair
The palm of my hand
The need for my care.
'Cause I'm a woman
Phenomenally
Phenomenal woman
That's me.