This morning, I met my friend for a coffee catch up at a popular Australian-style cafe that opened a few years ago called Little Collins, named after a street in the Melbourne central business district. In the last few years, Australian-style cafes carrying what they claim to be “Australian quality coffee” have been popping up all over New York City. One of them has even become a mini chain. Bluestone Lane now has multiple locations in Manhattan, and even has expanded to have two locations just in downtown San Francisco. These cafes have now gotten so popular that you have to line up just to get your carefully crafted flat white.

It was fortunate and unfortunate situation. Because the snow had stopped last night, I was honestly a bit sad because I realized that would mean that people would not be deterred to go outside for coffee this morning. When the weather gets bad in this city, like I said yesterday, people can’t hand it even a little and refuse to go outside. When the weather is sunny and mild, like it was this morning, the queues are just endless. There was a crowd out the door of Little Collins, so we decided not to wait and went a couple blocks away to Ninth Street Espresso. No, they didn’t have the same drink selection as Little Collins, nor did they have anyone there at all except two others. But at least we could talk comfortably in peace without fear of having what would have been our $4-5 coffee spilled or knocked over by the crowds in the crammed interior of Little Collins.

Since Chris had to leave this week for an Australian work trip, he ended up also leaving me with an extra ticket to see a show we’d planned tonight. I asked a few friends, and eventually one of them who lives in Hoboken agreed to come with me. Our plan was to grab a quick bite for dinner, and then walk over to the theater about 12 blocks away.

As I was watching the mix of rain and snow falling and the howling wind outside my office window today, I was wondering if he would cancel on me. I was actually wondering when he would text me to let me know he wasn’t coming. If there’s one thing you can almost certainly count on, it is the flakiness of New Yorkers (or tri-state people in general) when there is even the slightest inclement weather (see yesterday’s post).

In the end, about an hour before he was supposed to meet me, he texted me to marvel at how crazy the weather ended up being today but that he was on his way. We had dinner and then went to the show. And we had a really good time and a good chat about the show on the walk back to his car. Well, he actually is originally from Chicago. I guess I shouldn’t have doubted him. But I doubt everyone because that’s my nature.

It’s comforting to have friends who won’t bail on you… even when you expect that they will. It gives me more faith in humanity. I thanked him several times for making the drive out from Hoboken in this disgusting weather. But we actually got lucky in the end because after we finished dinner, the snow completely stopped. And it barely stuck to the ground, either, because of the amount of rain that likely washed it all away.

I originally looked at the weather forecast for the week and didn’t think much of the end of the week. I saw that there was rain, but I didn’t realize that the weather reports on the major TV stations were calling this yet another “Nor’easter” storm. At around 4pm today, most of my colleagues were complaining about the weather tomorrow, all saying it would be stormy and scary outside, and everyone plans to work from home.

I read the report myself and still didn’t think it was a big deal. Yes, there will be wind. Yes, there’s some pretty consistent rain and “snow mix” in the forecast. But is that really a reason to not go to the office, or are we just finding the easiest excuses possible to be lazy and not leave the comfort of our apartments?

I don’t care what they are doing — this is just another case of New Yorkers being too neurotic and not being able to handle reality. At the slightest mention of light snow, people immediately freak out and think it’s the end of the world. I’m still going to the office for work. Our office manager is going — she doesn’t really have a choice unless the subway shuts down. I’m going. I’m usually more productive at the office anyway when fewer people are in and it’s quieter… and I can actually think. There are still a lot of things that I think I have not been able to adapt to while living in New York, and here is another major reason: constant neurosis and panic at things that really don’t warrant it. Unless you are getting on a train to another city or need to fly, there’s zero reason to worry if you are living in New York City and will be going to work tomorrow.

This week, I started reading the book Radical Candor: Be a Kick-Ass Boss Without Losing Your Humanity by Kim Scott. It’s been on my reading list since last year, and since we have a small but solid “library” at the office on books that help with professional development and our industry, it’s nice to be able to borrow a real hardcover book and take it home to read at my leisure.

The thing about these books is that even though they are categorized as professional development and targeted at white-collar working humans, the techniques they discuss are actually helpful in life. It’s helpful to give honest feedback, even when it’s not pleasant, because it helps people be cognizant of where they fall short. It’s helpful to develop a thicker skin so that you can withstand criticism and actually grow and learn from it. It’s helpful not to be stagnant in the way you think and develop. Those skills should not be workplace-specific; they should really be about everyone’s life if we’re all choosing to have a “growth mindset” and constantly learning and improving ourselves.

I’ve been getting bored at the gym the last month, especially since now I no longer have a fitness club membership and use the gym in our building. I don’t have classes or other people going faster than me on a treadmill to motivate me. So I decided to do a 30-day free trial of a fitness app that I kept getting targeted for on Instagram called Aaptiv. They have different instructors, different types of music, and various workout types, such as running outdoors, running on treadmill, elliptical, strength training for arms, legs, or whole body, etc. There are also different target session lengths depending on how much time you have. I’ve already done five workouts on it, ranging from interval running to upper body strength training, and for the last two days, my entire body feels sore. I’ve actually been waking up looking forward to it. I guess I must be doing something right. So far, this has been a good way to re-motivate myself into doing challenging activities to see changes in my body.

After neglecting the sous vide precision cooker we received as a wedding gift over a year and a half ago, Chris decided to get me a sous vide cooking class as a Christmas gift. Tonight, I attended the class after work, and while it was a lot of fun and yielded some very delicious food, I could not help but be annoyed by the other students in the class.

For the most part, the instructor was probably a bit too nice, as he struggled to speak over people a lot. There were always multiple conversations going in our group of 15. There seemed to be little respect for the chef instructor. He oftentimes got the same question multiple times, or even got questions to things he already explained just because people were not paying attention. Because there was not a cooking station for every student, not everyone was actively participating in the activities, whether it was the chopping, the searing, or the vacuum sealing. So as you can imagine, a lot of people didn’t really participate at all. What’s the point of taking a class if you’re not going to be fully engaged?

One person came as part of a client/team outing, and because a lot of what we prepared was meat (via the salad with chicken, the sous vide chicken breast, and the sous vide tri-tip steak), as a vegetarian she ate only two things that we prepared. She insisted that she came for the “learning” and the company. Everyone else at least ate everything.

Then, there was the woman who was a repeatedly self-proclaimed “germophobe” who insisted on breaking her own 65-degree egg onto her salad. Um, didn’t she realize that ALL the other food that was prepared that night was touched by multiple other hands in this kitchen, and before that, the vegetables and meats were cut/slaughtered/killed/deboned by other hands? She also had the worst chopping skills of anyone I’d ever seen at a cooking class who claimed to do a lot of cooking classes. Even after the chef demonstrated how to “use your full knife blade” and not go “up and down” on the knife, she did the exact thing he said not to do and said she didn’t care.

So in the end, the majority of the students annoyed me, didn’t pay any attention, and had to impose their neuroses on the rest of us. At least the food was good and I could get out of there as soon as I could to take an express train home to peace and tranquility.

Split pea soup. It’s one of those soups that most people cringe when they think about it. They’re thinking of some green, thick, goopy mess, usually out of a can, heavily laden in sodium. It’s one of everyone’s seemingly least favorite Campbell’s soup tins.

The funny thing is that I actually love split pea soup and have fond memories of eating it growing up. We didn’t have very much canned soup growing up, though my brother and I did have a decent amount of canned vegetables and fruit (I still abhor canned peas, but I do love the sweetness and even the crunchy texture of canned corn to this day). But one thing that other people had in canned form that we occasionally had in fresh form was split pea soup. I’m not sure how my dad got into it. Maybe it was because it was an economical meal, but my dad would make us split pea soup. He’d soak the peas and simmer them in stock. He’d cut the carrots, onions, and potato and dump them into the pot. He’d also add a little chopped ham to further add protein to the soup (and… well, to get my brother interested in eating it).

So I guess I associate split pea soup with memories of eating soup as a child, eating with my brother, eating the food that my dad made. He didn’t cook a lot, but there were just a handful of things he would tinker with, and this was one of them. I don’t recall a lot of variation, but I do recall always enjoying it.

So, I made it today with my homemade chicken stock, an onion, and three cups of soaked split peas. I had no ham, carrots, or even potatoes. This was really poor man’s split pea soup. But I added some red pepper flakes, urfa pepper, and sumac along with the usual garlic, oregano, and thyme. And I enjoyed every bit of it.

Tonight, we went to see the show Admissions at the Lincoln Center, which is about a liberal white couple, one of whom is the head of admissions at a New England prep school, the other the school’s headmaster, and the contradictions in their beliefs about “diversity” and what liberal white America truly is. The conflict arises when their only son, who gets deferred for Early Decision by Yale, starts speaking about the supposed injustices he’s faced by not getting accepted and instead getting deferred, when his black classmate and fellow basketball player friend gets admitted. His parents call him out on his state of being spoiled and privileged and his racism, and he has a change of heart that ultimately results in massive conflicting feelings for both his parents about how much diversity they really want in life.

The play was extremely well done, and it also brought up a lot of questions I’ve had that I’ve never been able to answer. While their son is screaming and bemoaning not getting into Yale, he also calls out the contradictions of how Americans view people of “color”: why is it that people in Argentina or Chile who speak Spanish are considered “brown,” “Latino,” “Hispanic,” and thus people of color, but someone who speaks the exact same language, Spanish, in Spain, is not necessarily considered “brown” or “Hispanic,” but instead is categorized as “white”? Here’s the case in point that I actually thought about while in high school watching the horrible film Vanilla Sky, in which Penelope Cruz was a costar. Penelope Cruz is Spanish, from Madrid, Spain, yet she’s oftentimes given roles in which she portrays people from Latin America (hi, Frida Kahlo). Hollywood kind of views her as white… but not really given a lot of the roles that she’s played? So because of this, why do we not consider people from Chile or Argentina “white”? What the hell really is the difference?

What it ultimately brings up are the contradictions of how we perceive race and “color” in the world here in the U.S. We love to label and pigeon-hole everyone. Some people are considered more “white” than others, therefore more “acceptable.” Frankly, it’s easier for someone from Chile or Argentina, based on her face, to “blend in” as a white person in white America than someone like Chris or me ever could. The fact that we have to have these conversations is just so ridiculous and makes me feel unsettled about race in general and the supposed “progress” we have made.

I was on the train today, still thinking about my time this past Wednesday at the Bowery Mission. I’m not accustomed to getting yelled at by strangers, but this ended up happening while I was serving meals to the homeless and in-need people lining up at the Mission two days ago. All of the volunteers were lined up at the food station, manning specific dishes, utensils and cups to hand out. I was in charge of the pasta station and given strict instructions to give only two scoops of pasta to each person, regardless of whether they asked for more. The supervisor was watching closely in the beginning, whispering feedback to me about when I might have scooped too much, too little, and of course, what was just right. I had a feeling this was going to get messy at some point, but I just had to wait for it.

So it did happen. One guest passed on his portion of pasta; he didn’t even want it touching his plate. The guest after him asked him if he could take his portion, and he said yes. He asked me for a double portion, and I gently told him that he could only have one portion as that was what the rules were. He started yelling at me, telling me that the previous guest said he could have his portion, so why can’t I just do what I was told. Then, he proceeded to call me stupid, dumb, and awful until the supervisor got involved. “It’s okay,” the volunteer next to me said while smiling. “Don’t worry about it.”

I came back to the office after our volunteer service, and when the head of our office comes over to ask me how it was, I told him that I found it to be a great experience, a character-building one at that. He asked me to elaborate, so I told him this anecdote. He started laughing and said, “So, let me get this straight. You’re the awful person for spending five hours of your day doing free labor to serve meals for people you don’t even know who need food and likely won’t eat anything else that day? Sure. You must be terrible.”

I know it’s nothing personal. It certainly was a bit more drama than I originally anticipated. But I get where the guy is coming from. Like most of the people who were there to receive a free hot meal, this would likely be his only meal of the day, so he wanted to maximize what he could get. In theory, it did make sense to get the portion of the guy in front of him who passed, but I wasn’t really in a position to do that. When you have that little, you want to fight for every last bit that you can get, right?