Saturday, November 10, 2007

Nyum Nyum NYUM!!! and KUI

OMG.

Biaggi's.

Butternut Squash Ravioli
Roasted butternut squash filled ravioli tossed in a brown-butter-sage sauce with toasted walnuts, diced butternut squash and parmesan cheese.

I met my friends D and C for lunch this afternoon. Haven't seen D in a year (time flies). Never been there before. Definitely going there again. I had the Butternut Squash Ravioli and it is To. Die. For. So is the onion bread with the oil/parmesan/pepper dip.

My only complaint: beverages. Now, if you're going to order wine or something, great selection. But for non-alcoholic bevs:
  1. they aren't printed anywhere on a menu
  2. P products, not C products*
  3. no ordinary iced tea—just black currant herbal**
*Though the myth that Pepsi™ contains pepsin, a chemical which contains pig blood, is in fact a myth, I've been sufficiently turned off enough to avoid the P products at all costs and besides, I prefer the taste of the Real Thing™ anyway.

**Kudos for being fresh-brewed and it was tasty, but it wasn't the caffeinated regular tea I needed, it being still rather morning-ish for me at that point. Rocker Boy would have been sorely disappointed, being the fresh-brewed iced tea aficionado that he is.

But OMG the Butternut Squash Ravioli! OMG! What a flavor! Slightly sweet, buttery, and nutty. OMG. Walnuts. Crunchy. YUMMMM. I've never had anything like it.

The conversation was good. But I realized how much my thinking has changed this past year due to my exploration of the LoA. While listening to the verbal tennis-match between D and C concerning D's daughter's college plans, I started counting the amount of limiting beliefs emerging from both of them. They seemed to feed off of each other's beliefs. It was frightening. They were nodding, stabbing at their food, just chatting easily like you do, and I'm not even certain they really heard what they were saying or stopped to think about what they were telling themselves. They were confirming the impossibility of the daughter's dreams (even though her career choice in comparison to most is relatively common and possible) and how difficult it would be for her. I lost count of the limiting beliefs.

When they reached a point where they both agreed wholeheartedly that D's DD should rethink her major (she hasn't even graduated high school yet) and the chatter drew to a halt, I was shaking my head and I guess chuckling a bit—which drew their attention upward from their meals to me. I said "Oh, nothing—I'm just listening to the barrage of limiting beliefs being tossed out here." Perplexed stares. I said apologetically, "Well, I've been reading a lot about the Law of Attraction and about how beliefs can stall us out, and I've become more aware of the things I tell myself and the things other people tell themselves... stuff that limits the possibilities." I shrugged.

Momentary pause. Dee continued. She and her DH are trying to encourage DD to go into dental work.

I said point blank, "Does she like teeth?"

From her startled expression, I knew she hadn't been expecting me to say THAT. Dee said "No, but..." blah blah blah money blah blah blah good future.

I said "If she isn't passionate about teeth, she'll hate it, and she won't do well. Whatever she does, if it is something she is passionate about, she is guaranteed to succeed, because she will want to".

They were both shocked into silence, staring at me.

I continued, "Take it from me. Don't let her do what I did. Don't go to college and study something you don't like, because no matter how much earning potential it has, if you hate it, it won't work out like that for you." I could have elaborated with comments about how you can be wealthy but a failure because you are miserable and hate what you're doing, or how if you don't want it you may not work hard enough to make it and then you'd fail for sure, but by their expressions, I knew it would be lost in translation.

There was blinking. Forks were poised in mid-stab. Then the spell broke, and they changed the subject to dogs.

I love them both, but as they were talking, I thought "OMG, listen to them. No wonder they are only as far as they are and haven't manifested their dreams (most of them)." Then I heard my brain say "maybe you need new friends. Ones that have expanding beliefs rather than limiting, because you aren't going to change them." Interesting what you can learn in an hour's lunch.

I'm beginning to think I'm on another plane of reality from a lot of my friends lately. I mean, they don't get it. Take the Rocker Boy thing, for example. I mentioned something about him and D said "You mean you still talk to him?" as if that was the craziest thing she'd ever heard. I said "Of course, why wouldn't I?"

Because he "left" me? Er... he didn't leave me. He just moved. We didn't "break up" because we weren't going out. We were just roommates. Like in college. Except at my house. Uh... why is this so difficult to understand?

I'm also beginning to believe in a new concept I call Positive Gossip. Rather than "did you hear about so and so isn't it awful", I'd like to hear/say "did you hear about so and so isn't it WONDERFUL". Wouldn't that be nice? Maybe people think that it's boring to be happy. I don't.

The kicker was the conversation I walked in on when came back from the bathroom. D and C said they were just talking about me and D was worrying again about me becoming homeless in the future. Geez Louise! That was followed up by "when are you gonna get a job?" I deflected with "when the money runs out" then changed the subject to selling my house. (No, despite actually having a plan for the future, I decided to withhold all talk of running away to Nashville to join the circus—er, the music industry—"again" for obvious reasons.)

Here's what I realized on the way home:
  • I won't ever be homeless because I always have this house
  • they are both stuck in the limiting mindset that a job is THE LONE conduit for money
  • they both believe that not having a job = being homeless
  • (that the strangers who read my blog know far more about my life and inner thoughts than friends I've known for 20 years)
This is why I won't ever be homeless: because this house is paid for. No mortgage. They can't take it from me (same with the car). It might ONE DAY be uninsured, with back taxes on it, get run down, have no utilities, and I might not have food, water, heat, electricity or cable TV, but I will ALWAYS have these four walls, roof and a floor regardless (and it does have a fireplace and there are big trees around here and I have a saw).

So unless I sell it—which I hope I would do before it got quite that desperate; and spend all the profits—which considering how frugally I live (dinners out aside) and that I am and have always been addiction-free it's unlikely I'd do that (spend it all) right away; or some horrible tragedy befalls me (God forbid)... the likelihood of my not having A home is very, very slim. It is a long, long way from here to homelessness for me, despite not having a job today.

But tomorrow, I may have a job. Or next month. Or next year. As for today, right now, this minute, no I don't have a job, but I DO have other conduits for money (all legal, moral and ethical), and I have an adequate (by my standards) surplus of money stashed, and I'm paying my bills, and I have heat, water, food, electricity, cable TV and internet, as well as insurance and up-to-date taxes, so...

Can everybody please quit with the "OMG she doesn't have a job she's gonna be homeless!!!" ridiculousness now? Please? Let's stop putting that out into the Universe. Instead, let's focus on the fact that as stated above, I'm basically OK today, and will still very likely be that way tomorrow, and that a LOT of wonderful amazing things can happen between now and the point where I'd be living under a newspaper in the park, and that I'm smart enough and talented enough to hop on the appropriate gravy train when it comes along to keep myself OK.

OK?

OK.

Oh, how funny. Last night I went out to dinner (aren't I the butterfly this week) with B. So that's friends B, C, and D. Do I have a friend A? Hmm. Not off the top of my head. Not locally, anyway. Last night was Mexican at a new restaurant in town (Reverend Chico's). Love the ambiance. Felt like I was miles away from my hometown, maybe in a hip urban eatery tucked away in a city like Austin or Nashville. Definitely cool. Music was a tad louder than I like (had to scream to talk, hate that.) Slightly different menu from standard Mexican fare: in the Build-Your Own, choices include pickled or fresh jalapenos, cucumbers, tomatoes, jicama. No onions or green pepper which I found odd. But I tried jicama in mine. It's a root veggie not unlike water chestnuts.

I will say this. The first two Tecate's with lime went down far too easily (and quickly). The third lasted a bit longer. But when did beer cost $4 a bottle? My dinner would have been El Cheapo had I forgone the beer. And the guac. But ya gotta have the guac.

I also learned about the dangers of knitting under the influence (KUI). See? Actual Knitting Content. (It was also SnB night for us and this time we actually made it to the coffeeshop which had live music—another cool factor.) I've decided that instead of making you touch your nose with your fingers, a better sobriety test for coordination would be to have you knit from a chart such as the Embossed Leaves Socks for a few rows and see if you get it right. It's only three rows. I can rip it out. While the coordination was there, obviously the ability to be able to see straight enough to read the chart needs to be in place, too.

So that's been my weekend. Great food. Good friends (despite it all). Good times. But now it's Me Time. The guitar is calling. Off am I. Have fun, y'all!


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3 Comments:

At 12:11 PM, November 11, 2007, Blogger Sheepish Annie said...

I fugure that, if the ravioli is good and the end result is some deep thinking, any conversation is OK. Even if it is with folks who don't always "get" me.

I really, really want ravioli now...

 
At 8:33 AM, November 12, 2007, Blogger becky c. said...

Better watch out, you are coming dangerously close to being enlightened! :)

 
At 11:50 AM, November 12, 2007, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Seems like you know more about what to do with life than they do!

 

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