The Zen Kitchen

Well, life is back to normal for me. Meaning, that I dared attempt to be happy for a little bit and the universe decided to put me back in my place and continue the cosmic joke which is me. I was going to write one of my venting, whiny blogs about it, but I just found a website that will do it quite well for me while injecting a bit of humor. So, here goes.





























And, finally, one I made myself.

posted by Shaun @ 11:30 PM 0 comments

Explaining the cryptic post from a few weeks ago

Now that a bit of time has passed, and things have had a chance to settle, I'm going to explain why I wrote my insomniac "lessons" post. Well, at least partially, not everything is worked out yet, and I don't want to jump the gun nor curse things.

There were two major and positive events going on in my life at the time that were both very much up in the air, and were causing me to feel anticipation and worry. Anticipation, well, because they were events that could make my life much better. Worry, because neither was a sure thing, and I didn't want to get my hopes up.

I decided to stick with the positive, but not so positive as to be a fool.

The first event was I found out that the company I work for was going to be giving out large pay raises to people in production positions in our company. Since I am the senior production person in my store, I was hoping this would mean a large pay increase for me, and others were giving me the same impression.

This ended up not being the case, in fact, I got royally screwed over by my company. Not only did they not give me the raise they were promising, they gave me a stealth demotion with no explanation other than "our records don't match what you're telling us." And, since I don't have papers proving what my job title was or the amount of time I'd been doing it I was pretty much left at their mercy, my raise was the minimum they were promising - or mere peanuts.

But, in every cloud there is a silver lining, as they say. I was upset over this to say the least. Upset enough that I was ready to leave the company for good and take my chances in this not so spectacular job market. I found out about the stealth demotion before I was supposed to, and at my review I was ready to walk in and tell my boss that I was out the door. Before I got a chance to, however, he looked at me, told me in no uncertain terms that I got screwed, that he thought I got screwed, that he fought for me but couldn't beat the beauraucracy, and announced that the first day he was able he was giving me another promotion so that I would at least get some form of decent raise. At our monthly meeting this morning, I also learned that my fellow coworkers voted me our "Employee of the Month."

My company screwed me. It screwed me hard. But, I have good people surrounding me. People who respect me. People who want the best for me. My boss is fighting for me, my subordinates like me, and wanted to honor me. That's so much more important than money. Would the cash have been nice? Hell yes, it would have been. But I couldn't have used it to buy respect or loyalty. So fuck the CEOs and the paper pushers, but I got to learn that I work with a phenomenal team who stand up for me when the chips are down, and you'd better believe I'm not going to return the favor by walking out on them.

The second event still isn't settled, not by a long shot, but just this evening I got one hell of a confirmation showing that things are going in very much the right direction.

This morning, she had to cancel our second date because she wanted to spend time with her son. I was disappointed, but what kind of person would she be if her son wasn't her priority in her life? I showed up where she worked this evening and offered to walk her home so we could have at least a little bit of the time together that we missed out on this morning. She turned me down, stating that a friend of hers was in town and he was driving her home.

So, as I left, I gave her a hug and a kiss on the cheek. I looked her in the eye and said, "I'm not giving up on you."

She gave me a coy smile and said, "Don't."

"One final thing I have to do... and then I'll be free of the past."

posted by Shaun @ 2:32 AM 0 comments

A Very Long Engagement

posted by Shaun @ 4:40 AM 0 comments

A Very Long Engagement

I'm normally too much of a sourpuss to enjoy romantic comedies. Well, okay, the reason I actually normally don't like romantic comedies is I find them far too pat, convenient, and unrealistic, and the cynic in me just screams out that I'm merely being emotionally manipulated, and in a not so subtle manner, and that life and relationships just don't work that way. All right, I guess the sourpuss reasoning is accurate.

That being said, I love the film Amelie. For those who haven't seen it, its a French romantic comedy. Its a film about a girl who, through the act of performing a good deed on a whim finds she really enjoys helping others, and ultimately her own life is enriched in turn. Sort of a good karma story.

So when I saw that the main actress in Amelie (Audrey Tautou) teamed up with the director (Jean-Pierre Jeunet) once again to make the film A Very Long Engagement I knew I had to see it. The film takes place shortly after World War I has ended and it centers around a young lame girl trying to find out what has happened to her finacee' who had never returned from the war. I knew from the subject matter that this was probably not a comedy, but I assumed there would be a strong romantic element going in. I was right, but it ended up being so much more. I placed the trailer for the film in my previous post if you are interested in watching it.

As the trailer shows this is a film not just about a romance, its a detective story in which our heroine uncovers the secrets of many men whose lives were destroyed by World War I. While Amelie was a fun, quirky film with just a hint of a dark side, A Very Long Engagement is almost a mirror image, taking the tragedies and absurdities of war and tempering them with just the right amount of romantic sentimentality and quirky humor to keep the hearts of the audience light just when we think the gruesomeness is too much to bear. Its about war, but its also about courage and love, not just the love a woman feels for her fiancee, but the love felt by comrades in arms and even the love of strangers who have never met, but have shared in a tragedy. And, without giving away the ending, I can say it was just right for me. It was the perfect mix of hope and sadness. Happy, without being pat or overly sentimental.

"Vengeance is pointless. Try to be happy and don't ruin your life for me."

posted by Shaun @ 4:26 AM 0 comments

I haven't forgotten about this blog, I just haven't felt particularly inspired by much for the past few months that has goaded me into writing. Yes, I should be doing it anyway, inspiration or no, and for not doing so I deserve a good bludgeoning, but I did feel I owed some sort of explanation to my regular readers. Well, reader.

So what's the occasion now? Life has picked up for me a bit over the past few weeks, and I can't sleep due to my head buzzing about the possibilities and potentials going on. I need to get these things out of my head so I can get some rest, unfortunately, I'm not going to do so. Yes, for once I'm going to keep my thoughts to myself rather instead of vomiting them up for the public en masse to experience vicariously. Instead I'm going to talk about some of the lessons that I'm learning which happen to be buzzing around with the possibilities - you can then extrapolate just what may be going on, heck maybe your version will be more interesting than the reality.

People love a good mystery. There's a reason it's a type of literature that has been popular as long as people have had the urge to tell stories. Don't show your hold cards after every hand, and don't be afraid to bluff, especially when you just may have the best hand, anyway.

Don't make gross generalizations about anyone, on an individual or on a group level. There's nothing wrong with a little skepticism, but it just may be possible that someone you thought was wronging you actually was looking out for you, and you just didn't give them the benefit of the doubt.

I've said it before, I'll say it again, men are stupid and women are crazy. Learn to appreciate what you see as their faults and you'll live a happier life. Though, in keeping with my rule above, I have to add. "unless they're not."

Your box is there for a reason, just be sure you make it a sanctuary and not a prison.

Don't assume you've failed. Until other people let you know without a doubt, you're never really sure what you did or didn't accomplish. And, even then you can never really be sure.

That's about all that's coming to mind right now, and I really, really do need to try to sleep, so no film review this time except to say check out "A Very Long Engagement." Its amazing. I'll try to go into it in more detail soon as its the only film I've seen in the last few months that's really affected on a deep level.

"Christian, you may see me only as a drunken, vice-ridden gnome whose friends are just pimps and girls from the brothels. But I know about art and love, if only because I long for it with every fiber of my being."

posted by Shaun @ 6:07 AM 0 comments