Thursday, August 27, 2009
Watching Anthony Bourdaine travel through New York, Vietnam and South America, his videolog of hot pot chicken feet, fresh caught ocean king fish grilled over a make shift grill, and the famous Noodle Lady of Hanoi makes my left brain salivate. All of a sudden, I wish I was home buying fish from the tank and stoking the fire on the grill. I wish also that I could hug my grandmother one more time and sit on the kitchen floor poking little peanuts into our peanut cookie batter. I want to bring the loves of my life into today recreating joyful moments that are at risk of being lost to the past. The lack of flavors in my life at this time is debilitating.
Thursday, August 13, 2009
Woman In Transition
I think that I must have an angel near bye who hears my inner turmoil and wants to tell me that things will be fine because my fortune cookies have been dead on these past few weeks. I am a thirty three year old mother, attorney. Or is it attorney, mother? In one sweeping year, I became both. One better than the other, depending on my mood and the circumstances that compel my attention at any particular time. Lately, I feel as though I am grasping at straws trying to be the best at both as I am only starting off my career path in both. Like a manic sidewinder on crack, I do the two steps backwards and forward every time I think about what tomorrow brings. For now, my focus consists of being the best at entertaining and feeding my skinny little eleven month old daughter while finding time for creative intellectual pursuits on my computer, preventing one from colliding into the other, literally. She really loves to smash on my computer.
I live in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, a place that is as much of a conundrum as its name. For a little blue collar factory town so off the beaten track, we manage to make it on the national news at least once a year, garnering Hollywood recognition on the Colbert Report at one point for the ridiculous story about a little boy stuck in a gumball machine. Yes, it occurred at Lakeshore Lanes, a ten minute walk from my house.
My husband and I moved to Wisconsin to pursue a position offered to him at Kohler, Co. as an industrial designer for their Bathing Department. He has already become an award winning shower designer in only the four years since our arrival, since his second year of being a designer fresh out of school. Kohler has a great corporate culture, if you have the capacity to succeed. The resources are there for you, your goals are laid out before you and the expectations are clear. The hardest part to succeeding at Kohler is overcoming your own personal limitations, including aversion to extremely long and cold winters, codependent need for quality like minded singles, and an inability to adapt to ugly predated fashion. If these issues combined do not incapacitate you, then Kohler is your oyster.
Underneath the veil of white snow, Sheboygan County is a composition of subcultures. There is the local Hmong culture that keeps to themselves, the towny-RV culture who travel but don't fly, the Harley bikers versus weekend riders, towny-over 50 married white male at the lonely bar scene culture, drug dealers, drug users, drug lords, prostitutes & their pimps, tatoo artists, day shifters, night shifters, Lutherans, Episcopalians, Unitarians, home grown artists, home grown academics and intellectuals, out-of-towners but in-staters, out-of-towners and out-of-staters, the A-list elite executives and professionals, the B-list white collar mid-level professionals, the C-list college graduate starter professional, and out-of-town out-of-stater out-of-town-in-stater spouses of all of the above.
I finished my last day of law school December 20, 2005 with the promise of publication from Standford Environmental Law Journal and an application for the patent bar in my pocket. November we found out that we would be relocating to Sheboygan, Wisconsin to start our new lives as married professionals. Start our new lives as a family. Surviving both east and west coasts for all our lives, there was no question that we would make it big in Sheboygan, Wisconsin.
We were big fish in a small pond. We would be in control of our lives finally for the first time. We were moved by our own momentum. Looking back, there was no way for me to have predicted nor prepared for the changes that were to come.
I live in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, a place that is as much of a conundrum as its name. For a little blue collar factory town so off the beaten track, we manage to make it on the national news at least once a year, garnering Hollywood recognition on the Colbert Report at one point for the ridiculous story about a little boy stuck in a gumball machine. Yes, it occurred at Lakeshore Lanes, a ten minute walk from my house.
My husband and I moved to Wisconsin to pursue a position offered to him at Kohler, Co. as an industrial designer for their Bathing Department. He has already become an award winning shower designer in only the four years since our arrival, since his second year of being a designer fresh out of school. Kohler has a great corporate culture, if you have the capacity to succeed. The resources are there for you, your goals are laid out before you and the expectations are clear. The hardest part to succeeding at Kohler is overcoming your own personal limitations, including aversion to extremely long and cold winters, codependent need for quality like minded singles, and an inability to adapt to ugly predated fashion. If these issues combined do not incapacitate you, then Kohler is your oyster.
Underneath the veil of white snow, Sheboygan County is a composition of subcultures. There is the local Hmong culture that keeps to themselves, the towny-RV culture who travel but don't fly, the Harley bikers versus weekend riders, towny-over 50 married white male at the lonely bar scene culture, drug dealers, drug users, drug lords, prostitutes & their pimps, tatoo artists, day shifters, night shifters, Lutherans, Episcopalians, Unitarians, home grown artists, home grown academics and intellectuals, out-of-towners but in-staters, out-of-towners and out-of-staters, the A-list elite executives and professionals, the B-list white collar mid-level professionals, the C-list college graduate starter professional, and out-of-town out-of-stater out-of-town-in-stater spouses of all of the above.
I finished my last day of law school December 20, 2005 with the promise of publication from Standford Environmental Law Journal and an application for the patent bar in my pocket. November we found out that we would be relocating to Sheboygan, Wisconsin to start our new lives as married professionals. Start our new lives as a family. Surviving both east and west coasts for all our lives, there was no question that we would make it big in Sheboygan, Wisconsin.
We were big fish in a small pond. We would be in control of our lives finally for the first time. We were moved by our own momentum. Looking back, there was no way for me to have predicted nor prepared for the changes that were to come.
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