LAKE MACBRIDE— The Harvard Business Review wrote about the application of mise en place to daily planning. While most of us are not professional chefs, laying out the ingredients of a day and conceptualizing the execution can make us more effective in the way it aides the best chefs.
“What’s the first thing you do when you arrive at your desk?”asked author Rod Friedman. “For many of us, checking email or listening to voice mail is practically automatic. In many ways, these are among the worst ways to start a day. Both activities hijack our focus and put us in a reactive mode, where other people’s priorities take center stage. They are the equivalent of entering a kitchen and looking for a spill to clean or a pot to scrub.”
Like many people, I check my email, the Washington Post, BBC, Guardian and my twitter news feed before turning on the light in the bedroom. The problem is obvious. A friend wrote a note about a meeting next week, which I read around 3 a.m., and have been thinking about since. While interested in the content and potential outcome from the note, it was a disruption that could have been handled differently. The first thing I did after turning on my computer was to write a response.
I’ll try mise en place as a planning tool a few times and see if it helps make my days more productive. Today is soup stock day— a perfect place to start.
As a writer, mise en scène is more engaging than mise en place. Borrowed from film theorists, mise en scène is a step ahead of mise en place in that it considers what goes into the camera frame and sound track, which when combined with cinematography and editing tells a specific narrative. Mise en scène sets the time and space of a creative narrative whereas mise en place is prep work to create a specific result. Both have measures of effectiveness, but mise en scène enables better creative possibilities.
It wouldn’t hurt to assemble and think about the elements of a narrative before writing, and to an extent we do that. Yet the process of writing is such that once we go down the rabbit hole of a particular topic, the outcomes have more diverse potential. We often don’t know where we will arrive, or how, at the beginning.
A case could be made that we should begin with the end in mind— not making that case here. Writing is a métier that includes processing diverse experiences and making some sense of them. It is impossible to know the end unless the piece is utilitarian the way a letter to the editor or newspaper article is.
Since writing is a lowly paid occupation— its meager income supplemented by farm and warehouse work— managing time is a must. Some may labor for days over a 500-word essay, but it is more important to crank it out, take the learning and improve during the next piece. Mise en place may help us do that more effectively with better results.
LAKE MACBRIDE— The Cedar River was swollen with recent rain as I crossed on the Solon-Tipton Road bridge for my sawyering job. Water moving to the sea on this water planet.
It was a physically demanding day, and I slept well last night. What for breakfast? Now the trouble begins.
Being a wheat eater, the first meal of the day usually includes bread, pancakes, muffins, or the like. There may be dairy in the form of milk, eggs, cheese or butter. If I feel like grating potatoes for hash browns, that will do. All of this indicating a diet that has changed little since my forebears arrived in North America from the British Isles some 350 years ago.
Occasionally I make some granola, or buy a box of cereal at the market. Oatmeal is a winter staple, and if there is fruit around, that’s nice too. The fact that a leftover grapefruit sits in the refrigerator since Saturday indicates fruit has not been an important part of breakfast, even if it should be.
The pantry is loaded with things to spread on toasted bread. Several kinds of pesto, half a dozen types of apple butter, preserves from locally grown grapes, wild blackberries and raspberries. There are more types of spreads forgotten than remembered. Too, there is more to life than jam on toast.
In the end, breakfast is easy to figure because the ingredients have been around for a long time. It typifies my cooking that I don’t really want a plan of what to have for breakfast.
If we rethink breakfast, it should be in the moment, a creation based on what’s available, what’s going bad soon and what’s possible. The list of variables is not that long, so “creation” is the better usage.
Lately breakfast has been my main meal, with snacks and sandwiches carrying me through the rest of the day. It is time to better consider this important meal and make it better.
LAKE MACBRIDE— The tomato plants are doing nicely, with flowers beginning to form on some of them. A man who claimed he had two-inch fruit already, without a greenhouse— I don’t know about that. What has been planted in the garden is doing well.
That’s really the trouble. Not enough has been planted, causing me to re-think the garden.
It may be time to put aside some seeds to wait until July heat passes. Too, the greens must be picked before they go past prime. This week will be a period of finishing the first wave of seedlings, and regrouping.
Combine that will a full slate of other work, and there will again be a lot to get done.
The phrase “summer reading” evokes when we took off from school, and had leisure time between Memorial Day and Labor Day. For some it still involves barbecuing, boating, swimming, vacations and a host of activities tied to youth. Today, people continue to summer, but briefly and in competition with the constant clamor of the exigencies of modern life. People are busy trying to survive and get ahead, all the time, and there is less time for reading. Here are a few of my picks for reading during summer 2014.
Books
The classic novel of summer isThe Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, and I recommend a second look.
My summer fiction reading will include The Home Place by Carrie La Seur. La Seur is the founder of Plains Justice and a practicing attorney in Billings, Montana, where she has family roots. The Home Place is La Seur’s first novel, due to be released July 29. A section of the book, can be found in New Voices in Fiction Sampler: Summer Selection, which can be downloaded free for Kindle here.
If you have not read Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, it is worth the time, even though it was published in 1969. “The first in a seven-volume series, it is a coming-of-age story that illustrates how strength of character and a love of literature can help overcome racism and trauma,” according to Wikipedia.
Poetry
Pick one poem, any one, and read it… aloud. Then read another. Go to the public library and find the poetry section. Spend an hour browsing through whatever comes into view. Readers will develop their own interests, but in my to-read pile are The Oldest Map with the Name America by Lucia Perillo, Collected Poems by Vachel Lindsay, Miracle Fair by Wisława Szymborska-Włodek, The Spirit Level by Seamus Heaney, An Inconvenient Genocide by Alicia Ghiragossían, and Scattered Brains by Darrell Gray.
Screen Time
Turn off the television. It won’t kill you. In our house, we haven’t disconnected from cable, but we shed the premium channels, including MSNBC, long ago. We rarely turn on the T.V. and life has been better. I suppose if we cared about the World Cup, we’d watch more.
That said, we have screen time, and using it efficiently is an important endeavor, equal in importance to the time we spend in the real world, talking and listening to real people. In many respects, time in front of the screen has replaced television and print media and can provide value.
LAKE MACBRIDE— It’s a home work day and planting was on the agenda. It began with preparing the soil next to the slicer tomatoes, and planting a row each of Serrano, Bangkok and Jalapeno peppers. I mulched and fenced them, hoping to leave them until harvest.
The lawn is cut in varying heights. Places where I harvested clippings are short. The rest of it is rough cut and uneven, ready for another pass— more farm field than lawn.
I don’t have to leave the property until tomorrow for outside work. In the meanwhile, there’s more to do.
SOLON— Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway bought Dairy Queen in 1998, and after that, it became easy to associate the purveyor of dairy treats, Coca-Cola, burgers, hot dogs and fries company with his corporate governance. It is our local outlet in the industrial food chain with ties to the deepest memories of growing up in the late 1950s and 1960s, when the stores closed down at the end of each season— the owners packing it in for Florida or other warm places to avoid Iowa winters. Like a sundae topped with Buffett’s intellectual construct.
I stopped on my way to the county seat to get a vanilla cone. I was loathe to do so because the restaurant is less about food and more about the cognitive dissonance created when juxtaposing childhood memories with a strip mall experience. If I dined at our Dairy Queen on fare other than cones and Dilly Bars, the experience was forgettable.
Six illuminated menu boards above the transfer space from the kitchen to the order prep area display the offerings. There has not been much change in the staple lunch and dinner items since they were developed. The changes in food occur in the supply chain leading up to this Buffett cultural outlet.
On the positive side, the staff was friendly, courteous and efficient. I had my cone in a matter of minutes and the cool, soft experience evoked memories the way a Madeleine might over tea. Perhaps that’s the point.
The trip to Dairy Queen is one I delayed for as long as possible on the restaurant crawl. Except for memories, there is little reason to stop by, even if locals have made ours one of the longer term restaurant successes in town. There are likely other Buffett outlets in town, but none so conspicuous as this summer treat full of memory tainted by its association with the fifth largest company in the world. It is part of our small town dining experience, where the food is local, but not “local.”
LAKE MACBRIDE— One day per week usually shapes up to be a garden and farm day. Yesterday I planted peppers for 3-1/2 hours at the Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) project, followed by tomato planting and mowing/mulching at home. There will be plenty of grass clippings, and a host of relieved neighbors once I bring it all in. The tomatoes are in the ground, and victims of transplanting have been replaced.
The pepper plants from last week were shocked, with the leaves characteristically turning white. Today it appears few of them will survive. Afterward, I moved most of the rest of the seedlings outside to harden them. Luckily I have a few additional bell pepper seedlings and can get more from the CSA if needed. The hots are aplenty.
Summer Beer
At a meeting last night, we had a conversation about what to do about arugula that bolted (produced flowers), and decided we would eat the leaves. I also gave away some of my excess tomato seedlings and two heads of lettuce, a bag of kale and one of braising greens to young city dwellers who don’t have gardens. There is plenty of food around our house and giving it away is a gratifying part of a local food system.
Last week I purchased a case of beer for after the garden is planted. It is an annual ritual. The beer lasts until fall as I ice them down in a cooler and down them a couple at a time in summer’s heat.
While gardening and farm work aren’t all that was going on yesterday, it seems better to combine those activities, if for no other reason than to dirty only one set of clothes. Something minor, but important as laundry time becomes more precious and limited.
LAKE MACBRIDE— It rained on plans to work in the garden and yard. So now, the long lawn will wait until the next dry, sunny day; weeds are getting respite from being chopped; and the garage is clean enough for one auto. After the last, I went upstairs to the kitchen and processed vegetables for a meal— dinner of fresh asparagus, rice, salad greens with chopped vegetables and a veggie burger. And radishes. And spring onions. And soup stock with vegetables past their prime— mixed greens, asparagus stems, onion, celery, carrot and bay leaves. Simple fare for a simple life.
I have written about 2,000 words in two articles today, making this my third. Writing brings a sense of calm and I need that now. Better medicine than the antibiotics for my frying pan burn or the iced tea with blended whiskey. Writing works through our tension and helps release one’s cares, at least for a brief time. We write to clarify things. To straighten out a turbulent life, and by creating a narrative, yield understanding. That’s what we hope.
It doesn’t always work that way. But for now… rain came, dinner’s ready to cook, and what else is there to do on the Iowa prairie?
LAKE MACBRIDE— My patience is worn out with the talk of minimum wages, living wages, and all else hourly wage related. Depending on what one wants to do in life, the discussion matters a little or a lot. For me, not so much, as I previously explained.
I’ve written about worker engagement and dealing with low wages. A post illuminated low wages, and I wrote about my experiences assembling kits for Whirlpool Corporation for a very low wage, no benefit job in North Liberty. The practical result of all this thinking, writing and doing has been a focus on finding enough work to keep me busy and aggregate enough income in the form of wages, fees and bartered goods to sustain our lives on the Iowa prairie. I’ve found there are plenty of jobs.
Farm work
Working on farms and in our garden eliminates hunger. We continue to purchase dairy products, bakery-made bread, rice and sundry items from merchants, but since beginning work on two community supported agriculture projects there has been plenty to eat and enough to share with friends and neighbors in a micro-culture of food. There is a shortage of people willing to work on farms, and this creates an opportunity to meet a basic need.
Farm work can also be flexible. My sawyering work illustrates the point. There is a quarter mile fence line to clear of dead trees, and my initial estimate was a job of more than 225 hours. The property owner is not in a hurry, so I can work as I have time and weather permits. This job is paid in cash, but its flexibility provides a premium that fits into the broader picture of sustainability I am trying to paint.
Warehouse work
Large corporations have plenty of opportunities for low wage, part time help. Finding the right situation, one that provides a steady, reliable paycheck and accommodates my aging frame, took a while, but finally materialized in the form of warehouse work.
The physical demands of building kits for Whirlpool were too much. The minor supervisory role I now play at a warehouse club is better suited physically, and provides the flexibility I need to put the rest of a sustainable job portfolio together. One has to love the constant interaction with warehouse club members as a perquisite of the job.
Presently the wages from warehouse work make a substantial contribution to paying monthly bills like utilities, communications, fuel and debt servicing, accounting for more than half of our cash income needs. The long range plan is to replace this work with a better opportunity for income. Because the work is flexible, regularly and predictably paid, and has considerable social interaction with members and co-workers, it provides a stable platform for change.
Non-governmental organization work
I’ll sign a fourth contract with Iowa Physicians for Social Responsibility on Monday. The first was almost five years ago, shortly after exiting my highly paid, full time work in transportation and logistics. The work functions at a high intellectual level and is engaging in a way few other jobs are. For that reason, the project will receive high value in my jobs portfolio.
Like with corporations and farm work, NGOs are constantly seeking low wage workers to accomplish the deliverables of grants received each year. Because the work is contractually defined and the pay is predetermined, administrative variables are minimal, enabling a focus on the work.
The new contract is to organize a series of presentations on the humanitarian impacts of nuclear war to Rotary clubs over a six-month period. It is great work if one can get it, and because of the ebb and flow of the work process, there is adequate flexibility to accommodate the rest of my jobs portfolio.
Writing and editing work
Being a writer is a tenuous endeavor in the age of social media. It seems unlikely writing will pay enough to reduce the number of jobs in my portfolio, but there is beer money to be made if one is willing. Such income is still cash income, meager though it may be, and contributes to paying monthly bills not limited to summer beverages.
My main work is the unpaid writing at this site. There are currently three other distinct writing jobs for monetary compensation: proof reading for a local, regional newspaper, correspondent work for the same newspaper, and being summer editor of Blog for Iowa. As with the NGO work, these jobs function at a high intellectual level, and receive high value in my jobs portfolio. The thing about them is with each article I write, my skills improve, so the work feeds upon itself.
Business development work
In March, I described the process of business development and the Sumitomo Quadrant. With the jobs listed in this post, there are enough to plug into the tool to figure out next steps. That is, next steps after figuring out how to get all the work these jobs are expected to generate finished over the coming six months. Business development, like gardening, has become a necessary, but important unpaid job in itself. One that most low wage workers I know don’t give adequate attention.
Conclusion
Plenty of jobs are available if one wants the work. Whether creation of a jobs portfolio will also make life sustainable is an open question. The aggregate monetary compensation of this portfolio is enough to get by. It doesn’t translate easily to a framework of minimum or livable wages and that’s the point. In order to sustain a life, we sometimes need to take chances, and work how the jobs become available. This includes uneven compensatory rates, bartering and organic work like gardening and business development.
To make the paradigm work, jobs that have flexibility and will contribute to financial and intellectual needs take priority. Above all else, a job has to enable me to go on living, or else what’s the point?
Journey Home 
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