Note from the Departed

Do not be sad for me. Do not mourn.
For I know the secret of Death, a fate upon which you
Can only surmise, and speculate, and fear,
Until the day you, too, welcome this mystery to your bosom.

It does not matter whether Afterlife of doom or ecstasy embraces me.
You should not wonder if I am somewhere in the ether, or in a parallel universe
Still living or long dead, perhaps even perishing sometime before my birth.
I may not exist anywhere. But it is no concern of yours.

Your sole occupation at the present time is to live your life to the fullest.
You may have many lives, but if not and you only have this one brief breathing on a solitary Earth
Do not waste it on me. Or those who escaped the gravitational pull of living flesh.
Either we don’t care, or we don’t know, or we are looking down and watching.

And if we are watching, which you realize is highly speculative,
I expect you to dry your eyes, move on to even better occupations, and make me proud.

Brenda Cates Kilby
February 3, 2012

Savory Pot Roast with Port Wine Sauce

Ready to go into the oven, this pot roast is one of my family's favorite recipes.

Let’s take our minds off tragedy for a minute and head to the kitchen. Today I’m making a savory pot roast with port wine sauce. Here’s my recipe:

Directions: In a cast iron skillet or a heavy skillet if you don’t have cast iron, brown the meat on both sides, turning every 2 minutes, until the meat looks cooked on top, covering with a lid in between turns. Don’t worry about the sides. About halfway through, add the paprika to the meat, one side at a time. When the meat is browned, place in a roasting pan with the roasting pan ingredients, below. then take the vegetables and add to the roasting pan. You may have to add oil to the pan, depending on how fat your meat is. Ours is fairly lean, so I add some high-temperature oil before browning the meat and before adding the vegetables. Cook the vegetables until the onions are browning. Add the peppers last, about half-way through, and just lightly sear the edges. Then add to the pot roast, layering some of the veggies on top and most on the sides. Roast covered at 325 F.  for 2 hours, or until a meat thermometer inserted in the middle of the roast registers 160 F. or above. The meat should be very tender and come apart with a fork. If it doesn’t, it needs to cook a little longer. Be sure to remove the bay leaf before serving, as they are a choking hazard. Serve with a tossed salad, and either roast potatoes and onions, mashed potatoes and brown gravy, or rice.

Ingredients:

• Chuck roast, trimmed of excess fat – 2-2 1/2 pounds.
• 2 onions, diced
• 3 large carrots, sliced in chunks
• 3 ribs celery with leaves, sliced in chunks
• 3 cloves garlic, chopped (I use fresh garlic from my garden – they look like green onions right now. If using dried garlic cloves, crush them with the broad end of a butcher knife, remove the outer shells, and then chop.)
• 4 small fancy bell peppers (red and yellow), de-seeded and quartered
• 1- tablespoon smoked paprika

Place in pan while meat is browning:

• 1 – 16 oz. can diced, fire-roasted tomatoes
• 1- 16 oz can tomato sauce
• 1-tablespoon Emeril’s seasoning
• 1-teaspoon garlic seasoning
• 1 bay leaf
• 2-tablespoons worchestershire sauce
• 1/2 cup jalapeño jelly (I make this every year – from my larder) – if you don’t have this, add two tablespoons of sugar, orange marmalade, or another type of jelly.
• 1 cup strong port wine

Spring and Indian Marked Trees

Springtime on the Kilby Farm

 

It’s that time of the year when the weather is getting warmer, but many of the days are still fairly cool. This weekend we had two warm days, and then yesterday, Sunday, was dreary and cooler; today, Monday, it is even colder, with the mercury hovering around 34 degrees. We don’t want it to get too warm too fast, because we know that March is notorious for snowstorms and ice storms in these parts. One year we had two snows in March, and I can remember March 4, 1989, when I needed to go to Joplin to take an important test and couldn’t, because the hills were covered with ice from an ice storm and my car wouldn’t make it up the Pineville hill.

We are getting rain, and it is good that we are. Saturday, my friend Marilyn and I went over to the bluff edge of our property to look at some trees I had discovered a few days before. I was out walking along the edge of the bluff and saw a very interesting looking tree.

The tree I found had been bent over as a sapling, pointing toward the water.

Curious, I asked my friend, Marilyn C., if she thought it might be a “marked tree,” or an Indian signpost tree. Years ago, these trees were common around here, but nature and man has conspired against them and the numbers of these trees are dwindling. Most are from White Oak trees that have a long lifespan. This particular tree is located in an area of woods that sees limited light. So the branches have to reach up, up, up several tens of feet for sunlight.

The tree soars more than 100 feet in the air to get sun.

Legend has it that these trees were used to alert those on the trail to water sources. The tree’s bent branch points to a large body of water on our property, but it is a man-made pond. My husband told me that this area used to be a branch of water before the large pond was created. Here’s some more pictures of the tree, which has three trunks – one was cut – and another is dying.

The three trunks. See the wedge placed in the one on the left?

A view from the other side of the tree.

As one can see, this tree is not going to around much longer; it is old and the branches are hanging by a thread. I’m so glad I found this and documented it before it goes. I also found some other trees of interest, that have grown up through the limestone rock piles at the edge of the bluff:

Look at the base of the tree, growing up through the rocks.

That this tree grew at all, is a miracle. Yet it appears to be more than 100 years old.

Tyranny in the Workplace

For tomorrow’s class in Complex Human Organizational Behavior, I’m giving a PowerPoint presentation on tyranny in the workplace. The article was written by Robert Bies and Thomas M. Tripp, for the book Power and Influence in Organizations. It was reprinted in the text book we are using for this class, Classic Readings in Organizational Behavior. The article chronicles an empirical study Bies and Tripp  did of tyranny in the workplace. They surveyed 30 men and 17 women with an average of 12 years’ working experience, and asked them to think of a boss they had worked for who they considered “the boss from hell.” Then they asked them for information on how they, and their coworkers, coped with this boss. The responses were coded, and coping mechanisms were described, and then placed in a table. What they found was four coping mechanisms, with two dimensions: the first dimension is the face, or persona, that a person displays publicly; the second is the private face, one that is kept hidden from others. A person who agrees with the boss may disagree with him or her publicly, for example. These people were usually the bosses’ spies. Or they may disagree publicly and privately, and confront the boss openly. A common coping was disagreeing privately and agreeing publicly; and another group surrendered to the boss and agreed both publicly and privately. The disguise that was required of workers in these instances were telling on their private lives and their health.

I can relate to the boss from hell. I had one really bad boss, about 20 years ago, who drove me nearly batty. She was a micromanager who was unable to do the job that I and others did, ourselves; but she breathed down our necks on every project. It was so bad that if I didn’t make any errors she would tear her hair out over it, so I started leaving little errors for her to find; if she didn’t find them, I would silently fix them later. She was also the type of boss who would disappear for hours and then sneak up on us when we didn’t expect it, checking us out. She was a glutton for attention from higher-ups, and hated it when we were too visible; unfortunately, many of the articles I wrote for the newspaper were given my byline, even though I asked them not to do that; she was livid. I finally got them to just put the organization down instead of my name.  I saw her treat others with extreme cruelty; we had a saleswoman come by to pitch a brochure program her company was selling. The boss called us all in to witness the pitch, then she began to tear the presentation and the woman to pieces; at the end, the saleswoman was in tears, the boss triumphant, and all of us silent, afraid to say anything. I worked for this woman for one year, and then quit. I couldn’t take it anymore, and she had gone after my self-confidence with a razor-sharp precision. My health was suffering and I needed to get out of there. Two of my coworkers later left, as well, but one has become a lot like the boss, I notice – he found some of her tactics to be useful. The other one was a quiet dissenter, who was just getting through so he could later go to work with his relatives in another firm. But reading the Bies and Tripp article, I recognized the coping strategies in these and other people  who worked for her. She actually had two spies – both were workers who were not paid as much as I was, and felt honored to do the bosses’ bidding. One was an intern from college; the other was a senior citizen who worked part time and had a specialized job that none of the rest of us did – she also handled the petty cash box.

The Bies and Tripp article was interesting, but I feel more research is needed.

The study is small, and it sounds to me like some people may have embellished the truth, which might be why the “carnival techniques” and party atmosphere of the “underground” were found so interesting. The study did not allow for a fifth possibility: that some people did not find the boss tyrannical even though others though the boss to be a tyrant, and actually disagreed with the dissenters.

I question results that might have been skewed because first, respondents had to profile a bad boss. A better way would be generalized questions that asked about boss behavior in general, and then lead to questions that might give a more balanced portrayal of boss behavior. I have had, for example, one really tyrannical boss in my lifetime, as chronicled above. However, I’m sure I have blown some of this out of proportion as time goes on. Other bosses have had traits that were less than stellar, but none of those were bad all around.

A more comprehensive study would also show consequences of workplace tyranny, such as illnesses, loss of job, affects on private life, and coping behaviors that include substance abuse and acting out with others. In any case, it is an interesting area of study and I enjoyed the article.

Turkey Carcass Soup

Turkey carcass soup

After Thanksgiving, the biggest problem for me, anyway, is what to do with the leftovers. Even when cooking a small turkey, there are always more leftover meat, dressing and gravy than anyone will want, and usually people want to eat something different by the next day. A friend of mine made a wonderful turkey soup a few years back, but I knew I could improve on it for my own and my family’s unique desires, so I created my own recipe. Here it is, but be warned: it is a lot of soup. You will no doubt want to share some of it with family or freeze about half for another time.

First, take the turkey carcass, meat attached, and break it into smaller pieces and put it in a 12-quart stock pot. Add leftover dressing and gravy, and then fill the pot with enough water to cover the turkey carcass. Allow this to cook for about an hour on low heat, first letting it come to a boil and then lowering the heat to the lowest setting. Cover and allow this to simmer. Do not overcook, because the meat is already cooked. You are only creating a stock with the leftovers, and flavoring the broth. After no more than 90 minutes, remove from heat and strain. While the bones and meat are cooling, return the stock to the pot. It should have chunks of vegetables in it, but nothing else at this point. Simmer this on medium high to reduce the stock, for about an hour, uncovered. At this point, add a cup of sweet red wine and a half cup of balsamic vinegar (or to taste), and up to a tablespoon of salt, if salt is needed. Optional: add one 15-oz can of tomato sauce. I also put a teaspoon of pickling spices in and add peppercorns.
Now prepare the vegetables. This can be to your family’s taste. I use a stalk of celery, washed and sliced, and a small bag of baby carrots, also sliced, using the 4 mm slicing blade on the food processor. If you want the vegetables cut into smaller pieces, run them through a second time. I use two spanish onions, peeled, cut into eighths, and then run through the slicing blade. A large turnip is also good, diced, plus four cloves of garlic, pressed. Last, about 10 minutes before the soup is done, add a small bag of frozen peas. You can also add corn, potatoes, etc., but I don’t. Others add rice, but we don’t like it.
While the pot simmers, cut the meat from the bone, discarding all fat and skin, and chop slightly. Add to the pot a few minutes before it is done. Check the soup before serving, to see if a large amount of fat is floating on top. If so, scoop most of it off. You don’t want anyone to have gallbladder attacks! Makes about 10-11 quarts of hot turkey soup. Serve with hot cornbread.

Sad Commentary on our Times

Today I was with my Mom, who turns 91 in a few weeks. She had arranged for a caregiver for Fred, and we hopped into my car and sped off to Joplin a few miles from her home. Mom had a list of places to go – Michaels for some framing, the bookstore, and a department store we will call Chrisman’s. It’s name isn’t Chrisman’s, but after what I tell you, let’s allow that name to stand. First, we had to go to the women’s area and return some underthings she had bought the last time, changed her mind about before putting on, and wanted a refund for. Then we went to the men’s department, in another store location in the mall.
Fred needed undershirts. So first, Mom was eyeing the Ralph Lauren shirts, which sold for $10 each. Then we noticed a different brand that were packaged three to a bag, for less; in fact, they would even sell a second bag for half price. We noticed a lot of things were on sale during this excursion, but there weren’t many shoppers. The man at the counter was very helpful, and explained that the brand we were considering were actually better than the Ralph Lauren shirts, and cheaper.
“You can buy a Ralph Lauren outfit for $145 here that was made in China for 25 cents,” the sales clerk said. “We don’t have much in the store that isn’t made in China.”
Then we got to talking about the economy. The clerk, a man who appeared to be in his late 30′s or early 40′s, said he used to work for the railroad as a conductor; but he lost that job when the railroad cut costs and eliminated jobs. The one he had was the only one he could get.
“I was working on an MBA at Pittsburg, but I had to stop because I needed to work,” he said. I asked him if he missed wearing the conductor’s uniform, and he came alive; I could see in his eyes that this had been a dream job for him.
“I never wore the overalls and the cap, but I wore a suit,” he said. And then he told me about posh trains frequented by the “big brass” and what that was like as a conductor.
We talked about work opportunities. I told him I was also laid off last year at the local university due to my job being eliminated, and was working on a Ph.D. while looking for a job. I also told him about the University of Phoenix, and suggested he consider continuing his education there while working. He sounded interested. Then he said, “If you know anyone who needs a job, tell them not to work here.”
Isn’t it sad that a man who used to have a job he loves, being a train conductor, is now reduced to working at a department store selling goods made in China? And why is this the case? We are all to blame. We should be ashamed of ourselves for allowing our manufacturing base to go overseas. Stores who sell goods created off shore may be be able to sell the goods cheaper, but in the end we all pay a huge price for the “bargains.” I hear people all the time complain about having to dial 1 for English when they make a call to businesses. But these same people think nothing of stocking up on merchandise that is ruining the American way of life. What will it take? Does the light have to go out of all our eyes before we get it? Do we all have to hit bottom before we are willing to change?

Thought for the Day

American goods, made in China.

National Lament
By Brenda Kilby, 2010, all rights reserved

Paycheck to paycheck, barely making do
Having to wait for things you need until way past due
The kids need shoes, the tires are bald, but you have to pay the rent
If anything extra comes your way, its already spent.

A young mother is planning out the week
Groceries and payments and children have to eat
It takes skills of a magician to make it, a treat is really rare
But showing food stamps at the checkout, people always stare

A young man stands dejectedly in the unemployment line
The check he gets won’t pay the bills, he’s already behind
But he can’t find a job though there’s a baby on the way
And the senator on TV says the rich shouldn’t have to pay.

We were the richest country but the laws bless avarice.
Corporations want more profits, and our workers pay the price
Goods made in the USA are few, and our tax base is in decay.
The jobs went somewhere else, and the tax money went away.

The truth is, the ones who care don’t really have a voice.
And the ones who have the money don’t know or care they have a choice.
Our lawmakers could change things, but lack the courage to make a stand,
Put tariffs on overseas products and bring the jobs back to our land.

It’s hard to find your bootstraps when you’re already down
Talk is cheap and blame the poor is the best game in town
Instead, count your blessings, and give it some thought.
It could be you tomorrow, who’s writing this song.

In this, the “country God made,” we set the precedent
And legislators look to re-election, no matter they were sent
To speak for all of us who struggle through the week
Is this the way you really want your country to be?

Note: the next time you make fun of what someone puts in their cart at the checkout and they are using food stamps, think about it. Put yourself in their shoes. And then look at your cart, and imagine what the person behind you might think.