foster rant

One day I will go visit a foster home that isn't weird or creepy in any way. That will be the day when I don't have any second thoughts about the placement. I won't think about whether or not the parents force the kids to go to church. I won't feel grossed out at their room-sized teevee/babysitter, the "more than just little kids" smell of their home, or the strangeness of the kid's life situation. I won't feel like I've just seen the home of a cat lady, but with kids instead of cats. I won't feel weird that the house is too clean. I won't feel weird that the house is too dirty. I won't have to cover for myself accidentally batting an eye at their huge Jesus memorabilia of all sorts-- or any other weird collection those people might own. I won't get any weird (no matter how harmless) vibes. I won't second guess the parent's truthfulness, I won't have to weigh one bad situation against another bad situation, I won't feel afraid for the kids when I don't poke the weird vibe (again, no matter how harmless-- and I'm pretty forgiving) to it's fullest extent. That day will be one of the best days of my life.

Or at least it will be a day where I will sigh a sigh of pure relief instead of a sigh of worry that I trick myself into believing is relief.

I know I shouldn't be so judgmental, and I know that a certain level of weird is the nature of the work-- you have to be at least a little bit nuts to take care of a stranger's child as your own, perhaps for a day, perhaps forever-- but is that really what it takes to do something that good? To be kind of crazy? To be a collector... of things? To be driven to extreme devotion? Now I'm referring to the good foster homes, forget about the ones that are like 24-hour daycares, where children with special needs are left to fend more or less for themselves, or are ignored, or are strangely compartmentalized from the rest of the family. I don't know. Where are the people like me? I have the feeling that they're not there. I don't know how I feel about that. Weird.

washington county is weird

As I was driving to the Department of Human Services yesterday, I saw this on the veternary hospital's paste-up board:

IF YOU CAN'T BE A GOOD EXAMPLE, BE A HORRIBLE WARNING

Again, not sure if I should laugh or if another small piece of my soul just died.

50 hours a week

I am sick of talking about my work. However, when I find myself determined not to talk about it, I have nothing else to talk about. I can't tell whether it's because I'm kind of boring or if it's because I have no life because work take up so much time and brainspace.

So what do I do? I realize I haven't put a description of my job up on my blog and only the people I see in person ever hear about it. This entry will probably be the first and last I'll say on the internet about some of the details of my work and what I do since most of it is a) confidential and b) depressing. Besides, I intend someday to have something else to do and talk about. Someday.

I am a legal assistant at the local Public Defender and the part of law I guess I "specialize" in is juvenile law. I spend a lot of time organizing paperwork of some sort, trying to wrangle information out of or hammering certain messages into various bureaucrats and service workers over the phone, making sure shit's in it's proper place, doing various gopher assignments from the two lawyers I work with specifically, sitting through arduous and dramatic family-law type meetings, visiting foster homes to make sure kid clients are getting treated properly, sometimes to rarely visiting parent clients (yes, we represent grownups and child molesters too...) in jail to check up on them. I produce a lot of text that summarizes my impressions of people and their interactions, and I think I need to harp on myself from letting it deteriorate from long descriptions to "Person A=Horrible. Person B=Awesome." Yeah. I do a lot. It is damn interesting and fun for an office job. I'm pretty lucky in that respect. I also spend at least ten hours a week commuting from the city to the suburbs, and a lot of time in my car traveling around the suburbs trying to visit various kid clients or go to whatever Department of Human Services building I need to go to for whatever gut-wrenching meeting I need to go to that day. That is a lot of time to be spending with one's car in awful Portland-style traffic. I am pretty unlucky there. Yup. I guess the important thing to know is that my job is busy and stressful and sometimes a little draining. It is also deeply engaging and gives me the chance to feel like I'm contributing something positive to the world. I like to be busy. I like my job quite a bit, but I think I need to go visit the dentist soon because I am beginning to grind my teeth. You tell me what that means.

I feel like after three months I'm finally beginning to adjust sort of enough to start having free time again and to start having a life outside of the work-vegetate-work-vegetate cycle. I need more subjects of conversation, in any case.

So now you know. Whew.

i win at the cooking derby

Every few months or so, when the stars align just right, I go into an insane cooking spree in which I make way too much food to eat and make a huge mess out of my kitchen. Sometimes during those cooking sprees I make something really good, though no fault of my own. The most recent cooking streak (last weekendwas an insane marathon of Korean food and soups) has culminated in this fantastic dish, which I become more proud of the more I think of it:

Cold Killer Carrot Soup

• Approx. 1 lb of carrots, chopped into small-ish pieces
• 1/2 of an onion, diced
• 2-4 tablespoons Extra Virgin Olive Oil
• 2 cans of chicken or vegetable broth (3 or 4 cups? I'm guessing?)
• 3 cloves of garlic (or to taste)
• 2 teaspoons of fresh ginger (sliced, mashed, whatever-- it'll all get blended together)
• 1 teaspoon curry powder
• 1 teaspoon (or more, to taste) of hot red pepper flakes
• 2 tablespoons of fresh chopped tarragon
• juice of 1 orange (some pulp too, if you want)
• 2 tablespoons of bourbon (I used Maker's Mark)

Saute the onions and carrots over high heat in the oil until the onions are clear. When onions are cooked, add broth to the pot until it just covers the carrots. Add garlic, curry, ginger and red pepper flakes. Cover the pot and stir over high heat until soup is at a boil. Uncover and let simmer over medium-low heat until the carrots are cooked, stirring occaisionally. When carrots are soft, transfer soup to blender and blend until smooth. Return soup to pot over low heat. Stir in tarragon, orange juice and bourbon and let cook for 1-2 minutes to let flavors blend.

Eat topped with plain yogurt or sour cream.

Consider that it is kind of like a hot toddy, but soup. Yum.