What a wonderful weekend.
It wasn’t eventful, but it was full.
It wasn’t fancy, but it was lovely.
It wasn’t full of fanfare, but it was full of joy.
It wasn’t hysterical, but it was funny.
It wasn’t anything out of the ordinary, and that’s what made it special.
This is true for me more often than not. HT McGillistrations.
Little green, stony fruit with a soft underbelly…but only after a little fire.
I can’t put my finger on it, but tomatillos have always scared the heck out of me in the culinary sense. Last summer, we got a garden full of them, and I wasn’t sure what to do. Imagine that – a Mexican who didn’t know what do with tomatillos. Embarrassing but true.
That was before spending a week with my mom. She makes cooking good food look so easy.
For that visit, I took about a dozen tomatillos with me so she could use them to make enchiladas, salsa or whatever.
With only a couple of days left in my visit, while we ate dinner one evening, she left them on a griddle to soften and brown. I kept one eye on my dinner plate while watching them suspiciously with the other.
I mean, how the heck could something that came out of the ground nearly as hard as a rock produce that beautiful, tangy flavor I loved so much?
And then they came off the grill. Hot, kind of smoky and now translucent and soft – definitely transformed.
“Dump those in here, mija.” In they went to the blender — those and a few little red tomatoes.
Ok, we’d already eaten dinner, so no one was hungry enough to taste this stuff, right? Wrong. I could taste salsa verde any time of day or night and never be too full to perform the taste test.
So I did. OHMYGAWD.
Basically, nature and garlic salt had performed a miracle. And it’s just like French cooking – the simplest ingredients make the most delicious food, or at least they make most food delicious.
Miracles happen to these little green suckers when they’re placed under intense heat.
Lesson learned
But those stinking tomatillos taught me a lesson I don’t think I really was ready for: That I’d been so hardened lately in my heart from recent hurts and failures, that nothing short of a hot fire could soften me. Nothing short of a season of deep personal challenge had the ability to show me what really is, let alone what could be.
I was so far gone – kind of wasted, really, emotionally and spiritually speaking.
I’ve been taught since I was little to cast my cares on God, because he cares for me. The last few months, I honestly lost sight of that. To the point, at times, of not believing it anymore.
But a few things – I’ll call them gifts – that have been instruments in winning me over: my husband, my mom and brothers and extended family. And tomatillos.
No kidding. Who knew a little green fruit with a soft, squishy underbelly could point me to my True North?
So I’m curious: What’s on your bucket list?
A couple of years ago, I decided I’d make up for lost time and rekindle my love for music. I played piano and violin growing up and, conveniently for me, when we moved to South Texas from the Midwest, I “forgot” to enroll in orchestra classes.
Amidst the confusion and transition of the move, my mom probably forgot about it. And then she didn’t. But by then it was a year or two too late, and I only played on occasion at church or for other gatherings.
Ever since I started playing violin in the 4th grade, all I really wanted was to play the cello. Trouble was, it was a lot bigger than I was, and I had a mile to walk to school, each way. So there went that.
I’ve grown a couple of inches taller since then, and I’m feeling pretty good about returning to playing a stringed instrument again. Only this time, it’s going to be a lot bigger.
From the game Two Dots, Level 42, where I continue to suck.
Ever played Two Dots? I’ve never seen two dots that could mess me up so good.
So here I am, at Level 42 (pun definitely intended), where I plan to hang out awhile. Mostly because I can’t connect enough dots to get any farther. I think this is where my usual ability to think and plan ahead comes to a grinding halt.
For years, that’s just how I have felt about connecting my family’s “dots,” too. Until this weekend.
For 20+ years – all I knew was that my great-grandfather’s birth family wasn’t his birth family at all.
In the last week, I’ve found the dots he connected to originally and then those he connected to later, leaving me to investigate when and why he changed families. I have theories, of course. But I’d rather have dots – the connected kind.
Over the weekend, I had the pleasure of talking with my aunt, my dad’s youngest sister. She set me straight on who said what and the origins of my blog’s name.
She also put me in a better position to locate records about their father – not that far back in our ancestry, of course. But between that and my other recent findings, I can actually start connecting dots that have sat unattached for far too long. Much better than Level 42.
I confess, I’m an assessment freak.
I like to know “how I’m doing” and where I stand – sometimes on my own, other times as I compare to others. I just like to learn more about how I’m wired so I can be better in whatever I do.
Also of interest to me is finding out what makes other people tick and how they’re wired. Most of the time, I like to sit and listen to them and hear them talk from the heart. You learn a lot when you let other people tell their story.
But often you just don’t have that kind of time.
Take job interviews, for example. If you’re lucky, you get maybe an hour to get to learn first-hand whether a candidate is compatible with you and/or your team. That’s not a lot of time, especially when you’re covering technical skills and other competencies.
I remember trying to get a read on potential hires during interviews. I’d ask a few Either/Or questions to candidates to get an idea of how they operated and, consequentially, how we might work together. Not that everything about us is either/or, but we typically know what we like or don’t like.
That’s all I wanted to know. So my questions went something like this:
Which is your preference:
If the candidate and I were wired similarly (fast, big-picture, dreamer, starter), chances were good the combination wouldn’t work as well as it could. We might get along socially, but why have two starters when you could start well and finish well – with a really strong closer? So I typically went for my opposite, or at least more of a complement.
For what it’s worth: In my experience, visionaries or big-picture folks can report to each other pretty peacefully, as can details people. And details people seem to work well when reporting to a big-picture person. Just not vice-versa, for some reason.
What do you think? Have you experienced the same?
One theory I have is that the latter combo can be less-than-ideal due to the vastly different languages visionaries and details people speak. It’s like apples and oranges.
Of course, if you like apples and oranges, I suppose you can always make smoothies.
I’m an avid tennis player, and I like to work on my game whenever possible. So I practice. I drill. I play doubles and singles – anything to make me a more well-rounded player.
But like anyone who plays sports knows, the game can really get inside my head.
When it’s showtime – during a match – it’s really easy to get hung up on the last error I made. It happens to a lot of players.
Once we screw up, it’s like we can’t forgive ourselves fast enough to move on and play our best, even though, in Someone Famous’s words (Bruce Lee?), every new point is an opportunity to win.
The quote sounds trite, I know. But it completely turned my game around by helping me let go of the last point and move on.
Lucky for me as I get older, a concussion from my junior year in high school makes my short-term memory even shorter, so that’s pretty helpful too.
By the next point, that error is all behind me. Once that next serve crosses the net and kicks off a new point, I’m all there and ready to play, with bells on.
Lesson learned: Every first chance deserves another – in tennis and in life. We don’t always get it right the first time – or there’d be no need for a second serve, right?
So I’m vowing to go easier on myself and on others. We can all use a little a do-over now and then.
For the first time in 20 years, I’m on the hunt for a long lost ancestor.
Last time I looked for this guy, I discovered his parents, siblings, children. Yet there was no sign he’d been born into the family that raised him.
That’s how my research stayed for a long time.
Yesterday, I found his biological parents – definitely different than the folks who raised him. And quite possibly a different line than I was hoping for.
It’s time to go through Mexican parish records again so we can connect family dots and learn more about a pivotal ancestor.
That missing piece
Funny, how we always look for that missing piece – the missing relative, the runaway cat, the lost puppy – and we’re not satisfied until we know their status. Happy endings preferred, of course.
I wonder whether we’re just trying to plug holes to cover up cracks in our lives … or if what we’re really after is wholeness or belonging, regardless of the amount of ugly it takes to get there.
For this ancestor, I always wanted to know whether he was born to different parents than those he grew up with. Now I have my answer, and I still want more. I want the whole story.
Perhaps his mom died during childbirth, or maybe he’s the stepchild, “the milkman’s son,” as it were. Who cares. He’s my relative, and now I feel responsible to bring his story to life.
Oh – it looks like our shot at being related to Spanish/Mexican nobility is going downhill…fast.
* WFH – Working from home
Death to Stock Photo image
A few years ago, I wanted so badly to trade places with my consultant husband. I worked for ‘the man’ and had done so my entire career.
But I didn’t get to pick up at the drop of a hat, go for a bike ride or on a fishing trip (not that I would) – or even ride some powder in the mountains after fresh snow. I was a mere mortal.
If I’m honest, I probably held a grudge for a good 10 years. Until the tables turned.
Now, I’m wearing his shoes and well, there’s a lot to learn — mostly about myself.
In fact, it wasn’t until just recently I realized how much I need to be around people as part of my work. I’m a flaming extrovert, so while I adore my cat, being alone with him all day – well, that just won’t work.
Trust experienced telecommuters
I’m thinking Someone is saying something to me. Between this blog from Tara Mohr:
One of the things that made difference – that made the exciting parts come to the fore, and the harder parts fade to the background, was taking care of myself in the little ways. I’ve been spending so much more time with people I love, and taking the time to get out and do my work in beautiful cafes – doing the little things that nurture me.
..and this straightforward listen-to-your-rhythms piece, I need to make some changes.
Is the grass really greener?
In a world driven by happy-path stories and personas, it’s easy to think everyone else is living the dream. (Pssst…they’re probably thinking the same of you.) But sometimes what we have is exactly what we need during that moment … just with a slight twist.
My “twist” will be working away from home more – in cafés beautiful or otherwise – so I can be around people more. What will yours be?
Well, that was a surprise.
So I went online tonight on a whim to see what all has happened in the world of online genealogy since I took my last serious look (several years ago).
If you are impartial to having your ancestors “baptized” posthumously by Mormon missionaries, this one’s for you.
What had taken me hours upon hours – no, months upon months – to compile in family history was, quite literally, fairly easy tonight in the space of an hour or two.
I’m a huge technology advocate and often an early adopter, so I appreciate the leapfrogging advances that come every few months in the world of tech. To see it some 20 years later, though – that was on a scale I wasn’t expecting. I shouldn’t be surprised, but it is simply amazing how easy this has gotten.
I still have a lot of validating to do, but Lord knows I did that homework way back when. Now I am plugging in facts and literally connecting people-dots.
The coolest part: It looks like I’m getting closer to validating that our family were among the founding fathers of the San Antonio de Bexar – San Antonio, Texas.
I really do think my head might pop.
poor mexican gone 
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