notageek

On the other hand, you may never stop being disappointed either.

I know, without a doubt, that I am in the right profession. I also know that I am in the wrong workplace–one that, if I stay too long, will eventually give me ulcers and cause me to jump off high objects. I’m working with women–lots of women. I think there are four men I’ve met in $Healthcare_Company’s entire pharmacy staff so far, spread over several campuses. Campi?

And these are not the women of my wild youth, those jocular, sarcastic, blindingly smart women who punch each other on the arm and explode stuff and swear like sailors and have a creamy sweetheart core; these are girly women. They knit entirely non-ironic articles for each other’s children; they are impeccably pressed, never show irritation and have a gentle, loving energy about them, except when they hold grudges for 3 months straight at a minimum.

It is driving me fucking nuts.

I know about the “fallacy of the third sex,” ok? The one where individual women divide the world up into men, women and themselves? For the population in aggregate, it may well be a fallacy, but for the practice of pharmacy, it is holding up incomparably well as a rule. I have two kid brothers and maybe I do act like a teenage boy (poop, by the way, is hilarious), but I would way, way rather be a teenage boy than an uptight goody-two-Danskos. I am unwilling to compromise on quality of patient care, but I am also unwilling to stop being myself.

Anyway, in other news, school is way better this year, and dropping to part-time work has probably spared me several dozen points of blood pressure. Being married continues to rock, and before school started was one of the few things making work tolerable. It is also the reason I can cook more than I did when I was living by myself–the leftovers, should they even exist, don’t fester in the fridge for nearly the same time. Therefore, I present my recipe for

Fried Rice which is not full of Things

-Put 5 little handfuls of rice into the rice cooker. A “little handful” is as much as I can hold in my hand with all my fingers bent down to my thumb base to make a hollow.
-Cook in chicken broth to cover + 1/2 inch. Or one finger joint, if you are using my hands as a metric.

-scramble 3 large eggs with 1 tsp soy sauce in the wok. Remove in one lump and cut into shreds with knife.

-Use vegetable peeler to shave two carrots into strips. Use knife to reduce strips to small shreds.
-Heat 3 tbsp lard in wok and saute sliced pork sausage. Add sliced red pepper, carrot, peas, garlic, bits of bok choi and/or frozen peas.
-Add cooked rice. Toss around a bit. Add thin rounds of green onion.
-Pour in one Tbsp soy sauce and 1/2 tsp balsalmic vinegar. Toss everything around until fairly dry. Turn heat off; sprinkle with toasted sesame oil.

My grandmother’s fried rice, while impeccable, is full of Things whose origins are uncertain to me. They are usually porcine or pescine in origin, and everything is disguised in a heavy layer of soy sauce, at any rate. My mother’s fried rice is lovely–snowy white rice, pink ham bits, yellow egg and green peas–and entirely identifiable to people who come over for dinner. Mine is a ridiculous hybrid of nothing in particular, but my husband thinks it’s awesome.

Just like me, really.