January 17, 2023 Lunch - Domino’s Pepperoni and Sausage Pizza, Dinner - PPI Roast Duck with Norwegian Rice
Every day is special and there are multiple reasons to be happy,, especially if you devote energy to helping others. That seems to be the plot of this month’s book club selection, Anxious People by Swedish author Fredrick Blackman . The book offers a fictional chronicle of several people connected to a hostage taking in a high rise apartment.
Their lives and personal concerns are examined in depth as the chronicle weaves their lives together toward the heart warming conclusion of how their actions to help others is transformative in their and the lives of those they interact with during their hours of forced imprisonment.
The moral of the book to me was that the path of loneliness and emotional isolation that often leads to suicide can be altered by loving interaction with others.
Blackman uses sophisticated humor to both expose each of the character’s deep seated emotional agendas that are motivating their conversations and actions, as well as to entertain the reader, because as the characters often say in the book, “People are idiots.”
At the conclusion the characters seem to alter their earlier harmful ways of thinking and acting for the better as they share their wealth and social skills and love with others. This welling up of happiness through sharing seems to be the formula behind the book.
In my case it worked. I loved the book.
We all share in different ways depending upon our personal situation.
I have a law degree and have spent years developing and sharing my knowledge with others. I have never figured out if it is a gift or a defect that I accept what people offer in the form of compensation for my services. I render a bill and most people pay the bill, which is the superficial relationship of lawyer client, but as I get to know clients over time there seems to be a transformation toward friendship and a drift adherence to a firm hourly rate relaxes into a negotiated price based upon the effort and knowledge I provide as a part of the client’s overall goal.
Most of my clients are sophisticated businessmen with identified goals when they come to me that they have already monetized and have a good sense of how my effort fits into their transaction.
Case in point. I am part of a network of Persian Shias Muslims and Muslims and Sikhs of Indian origin who do business together. They seem more comfortable negotiating the price of everything at the beginning of the process, which is often impossible in large transactions. But what I have found is when you are a trusted member of their team they will negotiate a fair price at the end of each transaction when presented with a bill.
That happened this week. I was engaged by one such client to prepare the legal documentation for a multi-million dollar corporate reorganization based upon the creation of a large number of legal entities to take over control of a large number of properties through leases rather than acquisition.
I was given about a dozen Manila folders with the charters for each entity and in an initial meeting that also provided me the economic relationship between six pairs of companies. I then spent last weekend drafting organizational documents to complete each entities’ formation and leases and minutes to link each to a specific property. Then I spent more than 10 hours with the client and their accountant to complete the documentation. As a result I rendered a verbal bill for about $4,000 and they negotiated with me and paid me $3100 today at the end of the engagement, which I think both of us felt was a fair compensation for solidifying their multi-corporation structure. They trusted me to do the work and we worked together to accomplish what would have taken months to accomplish with a large corporate firm for a fee that was a fraction of what they would been charged by a large corporate firm.
And they still need to document additional transactions with other partners in other properties, that we agreed could wait until after I recover from my hip surgery.
And I also was introduced to the fast food cuisine of Subway yesterday and Domino’s Pizza today. Yesterday’s chicken sandwich was awful because instead of slices of chicken the chicken was cooked with a sauce that collapsed the chicken into fibrous mush stuffed into a nicely baked baguette. Today’s lunch was much better because it was more predictable, a small pepperoni and sausage pizza in a sturdy Domino’s box designed to retain the pizza as warm as possible. I think I was more impressed with the box than the 🍕.
At 4:00 we finished and I drove to my appointment at Manzano to have an assessment of the condition of the cartilage around my knee. After an additional ultrasound of my knees I was given an estimate for the cost of a platelet replacement procedure to strengthen the knees and drove home, arriving at 6:00.
Suzette had brought home a sample of the Norwegian rice the Greenhouse Bistro staff prepared for the Scandinavian meal featured for January.. The rice was cooked with bell peppers and other vegetables into a delicious combination.
We decided to eat the Norwegian Rice with the leftover Roast Duck from our lunch at East Ocean last week instead of cooking.
Suzette heated the two dishes in the microwave and opened a bottle of 2019 French red wine. Chateauu Maris’ biodynamic 70% Syrah-30% Grenache Natural Selection wine produced in the Minervois La Laviniere Appellation given to her for her birthday.
The
Minerve village, Languedoc-Roussillon
Minervois La Liviniere is a red wine appellation of the Languedoc region in southern France. La Liviniere is a commune in the north of the area covered by the Minervois appellation, with a reputation for producing some of the finest red wines of the region.
After their wines were classified as AOC Minervois in 1985, the producers of La Liviniere spent 10 years lobbying the INAO (the government body in charge of France's appellation system) for their own, more-specific appellation of which eventually they were successful.
The Minervois La Liviniere title is uniquely for the local dry red wines produced from traditional Carignan and Cinsaut grapes, assisted by the classic Rhone varieties Grenache, Syrah and Mourvedre. The latter three are cepages ameliorateurs ('improver varieties') and are being widely used across the region to make the traditional Carignan-based wines more complex and approachable. Grenache, Syrah and Mourvedre must form a minimum of 60 percent of any wine made under the La Liviniere name, while Carignan and Cinsaut are limited to a maximum of 40 percent.
The area's terroir is characterized by a Mediterranean climate and classic southern-French garrigue landscape. Garrigue is the quintessential Provencal landscape of dry, limestone-based scrubland, populated by hardy herbs such as rosemary and lavender. It is this soil make-up which sets La Liviniere apart from the rest of Minervois.
The Appellation is located in Southwestern France northeast of Carcassone.
I liked the wine because it had a fresh brightness that I think is associated with the biodynamic process while combining two of the most famous grapes raised in the Southern Rhone a bit farther northeast that I am particularly fond of drinking with roast duck. I finally felt like I understood the pleasure of drinking Biodynamic wines. I shall try to find more Chateau Maris biodynamic wine.
We watched Finding Your Roots and after a Calvados, a cup of tea, and several cookies I went to bed. Suzette had preceded me a bit after 8:00.
I awakened at 2:00 and stayed up until 5:00 to blog and catch up on the news.
New Mexico made the national news because a neighbor who lives around the corner who ran for a state senate seat who is as an election denier appears to have paid people to shoot bullets through five local democratic politicians’ homes and offices. APD arrested him and It now looks as if he will be prosecuted for his political activism that endangered the lives of several persons.
Alex Wagner interviewed Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver extensively about threats to election workers and how to stop dangerous lies spread on the Internet that precipitate such actions and the need to vigorously prosecute persons who spread such lies
Bon Appetit
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