Worklife detail #121:
Ways to ensure you eat properly



The desk drawer unit I have at work has three drawers, the top two are each about 6" deep, and the bottom is for hanging folders. I've decided to designate my entire second drawer my "mini-kitchenette", stocking it with utensils, food/beverage containers and a small selection of food.

Currently, it's lined with a cushioned shelf liner, and stocked with a "chow kit", a set of chopsticks, a paring knife in a plastic case, a box full of baggies, a saucer, a large cup, a small bowl, a tin of really satisfying chocolate-flavoured tea and a "tea ball" infuser.

I've also recently decided — in the event that I didn't bring baon — to stock tinned food if I'm working too late or too hectically to be able to run out and get food. Currently, I have equipped myself with the carob chips I can't seem to find a baking project for, a tin of smoked oysters, a tin of good-quality salmon and a tin of dolmades.

The "lost" desk drawer is a small price to pay to stay properly fed and hydrated, I think.

Sobbing inconsolably, with much anguish

I can't believe I haven't seen them live yet!

I whistle too much

Strange fact about me: I never learned how to whistle until this year. As a child, I tried to get myself omitted from the Play Day activity in which you stuff your face full of crackers and try to whistle a tune before your opponent. I knew I couldn't whistle — I could barely make a shrill noise by blowing past my teeth — and saltines just aren't good enough for me to want to eat them on their own.

As I built upon my appreciation of music while growing up, I started to find it frustrating that my only options as far as reproducing music was concerned were humming, singing, or trying to pick out a tune on one of the two musical instruments I hardly have a basic understanding of.

There were also the tantalizing snatches of whistling that occurred, occasionally, when I'd breathe out with control while do a workout — an ab-crunch here, a bicep-curl there. I started thinking I wasn't some biologic freak of nature that was physically incapable of whistling.

Matt liked to theorize that he'd come home from work one day, only to find me near-unconscious on the floor, parched, with chapped lips from all the attempted whistling I was undertaking.

When, at the over-ripe age of 30 I finally found my ability to whistle, I knew I had decades worth of practice to make up for.

So it's understandable that I'd seize the opportunity to show my appreciation for my co-worker's taste in music by sometimes whistling along to her choice of song, right? Of course, if she likes music just as much as, if not more than, me, I can see how she'd take my horribly ill-practiced attempts at tune-making as an out-and-out butchering of good songs. Oops!

So I guess I'll be trying to keep my whistle-practice to personal-time. I suppose I can choose to see it as positive that, when my manager was asking for a performance review for me, it was the only complaint she had about me. :)