A Day of Short Rations and lots of action. Lunch – PPI Turkey Soup and Turkey Salad. Dinner Turkey Salad Sandwiches and Book. Club

A Day of Short Rations and lots of action. Lunch – PPI Turkey Soup and Turkey Salad. Dinner Turkey Salad Sandwiches and Book. Club

There are some days when food is secondary because the legal activities are so consequential.  Today was one of those days.

In the morning I overcame the last obstacle to closing the $1,200,000 sale of a motel by proposing a form of affidavit acceptable to underwriter’s counsel at the title company that deleted a title exception objected to by buyer.  This meant the transaction would close and was the last action in two month’s of work to complete the sale.

I ate yogurt, milk, blue berries, and granola for breakfast, then worked on the closing affidavit.  Then started calling the title company to see if they received the affidavit and if their title attorney had read and accepted it.  Finally just before noon our title officer called to confirm that the affidavit was accepted and the title exception was deleted and confirmed that the transaction would close.

I heated the plastic container containing the last of the turkey soup and ate it while watching the World Cup match between England and Belgium that turned out to be a yawn because both teams were at the top of their bracket and were assured of a place in the knockout round and no one was playing with much intensity.

A board meeting with one of my corporate clients was scheduled for 2:00 and I had promised to bring turkey salad and pickles, so at 1:30 I checked the turkey salad and found that it had dried out a bit and the tarragon and port wine vinegar flavor had become stronger, so I added about ½ cup of mayonnaise to loosen it up, taste less vinegary,  and more easily spread on bread, because there would be no other condiment like mayonnaise available at the meeting to make the salad palatable.  After I stirred in the mayonnaise and packed the salad in a 32 oz. yogurt container,  I grabbed my  jar of homemade pickles and my corporate files and drove to the meeting.

Every one liked the turkey salad sandwiches on dark nut bread and the pickles and we had a successful board meeting.

At 4:00 I drove to Talin, that was on the way home and bought a yogurt drink, a 14 oz. package of Swedish hard rye bread, a kilo package of German fullkorns bread, shallots, a magnum of sake, a kilo plastic package of my favorite red miso, a package of white beech mushrooms, and a can of Spanish pimientos.  I love the multi cultural shopping experience at Talin, which is has the greatest variety of imported specialty foods in New Mexico.

The I went to the bank to make a deposit on my way home got to sit in the drive through lane for about ten minutes waiting for service, which gave me the opportunity to observe the thermometer in the car register a temperature of 103 degrees, thankful that I was in an air conditioned car in the shade under the drive through awning and contemplate global warming.

I arrived home at around 5:15 and listened to the news while typing the minutes for the board meeting.

Suzette arrived at 5:45 hungry, so after discovering the departure of the turkey salad she made some more with red cabbage, Cole slaw, celery mayonnaise, and turkey.  I fetched a tomato and she made a tomato and turkey salad dinner/snack and I spread the rest of the turkey salad on two slices of Danish cocktail bread.

We watched the news at 6:55 I walked to the Palmers for the Book Club Meeting.  Charlie picked Tuxedo Park, which I liked very much.  It is the biography of Alfred Loomis, who was one of those rare persons who excelled at everything he did.  He was instrumental in the scientific research into radar and development of the atomic bomb that helped the Allies win WWII.  He was also a corporate attorney and financier who became one of America’s wealthiest men by owning The Wall Street firm that financed the electrical grid in the 1920’s.  He retired after the crash and devoted himself to scientific research, building a private lab at Tuxedo Park located about 40 miles north of NYC that transitioned into the Rad Lab and the Manhattan project during the war.

It helped that he had a scientific mind and was fabulously rich, like Bill Gates, and also that his favorite cousin was Henry Stimson, who was Secretary of War during WWII.

Loomis knew everybody, had virtually unlimited funds to make anything happen and was smart enough to know what actions were consequential and the organizational skill to orchestrate a strategy to successfully execute the necessary action, like develop radar into operational applications and help fund and develop the seven or eight discrete scientific and engineering functions necessary to make the atomic bomb.

He spent much of his spare time on Hilton Head Island which he and his brother-in-Law business partner bought for $3.00/acre and sold thirty years later for $500.00/acre.  Almost every decision he made was consequential and right.

I was thrilled to learn this bit of American history.

Susan made brownies and chocolate chip cookies and bought cream puffs at Costco that we ate with Hershey’s chocolate syrup after the meeting.
A really fun day.  I realize that the most fun thing for me is to see if I can make things happen, like Loomis. Today was one of those days when I was able to achieve consequential results in two different transactions, one completed and one started toward an uncertain but hopefully attainable goal.

Bon Appetit