A bye
by Anton Zuiker on September 23, 2024
A work day, and Oliver’s evening soccer game, and daily chores around the house, and other people and issues to focus on, so no blog post of substance tonight.
Sunday at the beach
by Anton Zuiker on September 22, 2024
Oliver joined me for an overnight trip to the Wilmington area so we could visit my brother, Joel, who is acting in a community-theater performance of a play called Shakers Revised, by the playwright Rose-Mary Harrington. Joel played two parts, and he was good. The play, about the start of the Shaker religious sect and its emigration to America, was interesting. I was reminded how a black-box theatre can be used to show and tell stories.
Before the play, Oliver and I walked through downtown Wilmington and along the river walk. It was beautiful evening and the city was humming with people on dates, lined up for the One Tree Hill reunions, or like us in search of ice cream.
This morning, after breakfast and goodbyes—Joel had a matinee performance to get to—Oliver and I went to Topsail Beach. The weather was perfect, the waves fun, and the beach not too crowded. So nice. In Surf City, we had lunch at Shaka Tacos, then headed home to Chapel Hill.
The drive to the coast is so easy, and with Joel there always willing to host me, I’m baffled why I don’t head that way more often.
Above and below
by Anton Zuiker on September 21, 2024
Nearly every week I get an email message from a colleague that uses the word ‘below’ as an adjective, such as the example below:
Your leaders received the below message a few days ago. Please amplify in your departments and units.
Or a sentence on a web page that began “The below map includes …
I’ve noticed that this makes me uneasy. I don’t like it. Below should come after, not before. Using below as an adjective is not wrong, though, according to this Grammarphobia post. Used to be rare, but still acceptable, and clearly rising in use.
Then, this morning, I read the latest issue of Ruhlman’s Newsletter and saw, beneath a photo of delicious-looking beans, this:
Beans! It’s fun to shout! BEANS! They’re good for the heart! I have a bowl of them beside me as I type these words, leftovers from the above dish, about which more below.
I’ve known Michael for 30 years. I’ve looked up to him and found inspiration and joy and learning from his books and articles and blog posts and newsletters. So if Michael is using these words in ways that feel uncomfortable to me, I oughta up give.
Seriously, I know language changes and evolves. Even that Grammarphobia post mentions how linguists change their minds.
I’ve been changing, too. I’ve been giving more attention to emotions and so have been mindful to how little changes—in my body’s temperature, for example—affect my nervous system and well-being. I’m better attuned, and more relaxed.
So, now I know how to skip over the above pet peeve.
On another note, Michael’s newsletter is entertaining and informative as ever, with a focus on beans and also a confession to “two epic kitchen failures.” What a coincidence! Earlier this week, I cooked a pot of Flageolet beans but I added too much salt and completely ruined the beans.
Lessons learned.
Night sounds
by Anton Zuiker on September 20, 2024
This last week I’ve been sleeping upstairs while Erin recovers from hand surgery—I’m a heavy sleeper, and I don’t want to roll over onto her stitched and bandaged finger—and each night I open the window so I can feel the cool air and listen to the forest.
I’ve heard the barred owls plenty, and the other night I heard a pack of coyotes near the chicken coop.
I texted Sid, a friend who hunts deer on our land each fall and who set up a critter cam, if he’d gotten any photos of the coyote. No, but he’s seen “about 10 raccoons in there” and he’s gotten the fox a few times and also the kitten trying to get a squirrel. I’m sure he’s seen a lot of deer, too, gathering under the oak trees to eat fallen acorns and the corn he’s spread.
Right now I hear crickets and other insects. I image the bats are flying above, feasting on bugs.
Digging a read
by Anton Zuiker on September 19, 2024
At date-night dinner with Erin, at our favorite local spot Pizzeria Mercato, I told Erin how much I’ve been enjoying reading again. Especially novels.
Today, for example I finished Glorious Exploits by the Irish writer Ferdia Lennon. I loved this story about ancient Greece (Syracuse on Sicily, really) told in a contemporary Irish voice. It was funny, both a tribute to classical poetry and theater but also a rumbling middle finger to war. Also a tall tale that reminds us about the value of friendship.
Now I’m about to dig into the latest book by Michael Ruhlman. It’s a young-adult novel about working in a professional kitchen.
Our strengths
by Anton Zuiker on September 18, 2024
After work—the DCRI Research Communications & Engagement department gathered for a rewarding retreat focused on our top five strengths (per our individual CliftonStrengths reports)—Erin and I zipped over to our local bookstore, Flyleaf Books, to attend a talk by our friend Kelly Alexander and hosted by another friend, Max Owre. Max coordinates events for Carolina Public Humanities, and Kelly was there to “delve into the relationship between those seeking political office and the food they consume for the camera.” She gave a smart, insightful, funny, and thought-provoking presentation.
I started reading Kelly’s writing in the food magazine Saveur back in Cleveland in 2000, and once I realized she was living in North Carolina, I began to follow her work, hoping to collaborate someday. Eventually, we did meet. Kelly has a new book, based on her doctoral studies in Belgium, coming out next month. Truffles and Trash looks intriguing.
Max I’ve known longer.
Both of these friends inspire me with their strong intellects.
My time
by Anton Zuiker on September 17, 2024
Today, as on most Tuesdays, I had three one-on-one meetings with my reports, research communications specialists for whom I am their manager. I’ve tried, over the last couple of years, to approach these check ins—sometimes face to face in the office, often over Zoom or Teams—as open as possible to give my colleagues the opportunity to share what they want.
Still, I know I can do better. Listen deeper. Be more curious.
As it happened, this week’s interview in the Coaching for Leaders podcast is all about the 1:1 meeting. Host Dave Stachowiak interviewed Steven Rogelberg of UNC Charlotte.
Near the end, Rogelberg explains the key point this way:
The manager has to explicitly say, this is not a status update. This is not a meeting for me. Don’t do this meeting for me. This is a meeting truly for you. If you want to talk about a particular project, fine, because it’s your meeting.
A straightforward lesson that I’ll focus on in the weeks ahead.
But that also got me thinking about my own motivations for the 1:1 meeting with my manager, as well as when I meet with my professional coach, my therapist, my doctors and dentist and orthodontist. Over the last year, I’ve come to understand that I’m often unclear about what I want to get out of session or appointment, or timid if I do know. Except that time I insisted over the phone that my primary care physician give me a prescription for an antibiotic because I’d been bitten by a tick—he presecribed a single doxycycline pill, and at a later visit gently explained that there’s not much to worry about with ticks in Chapel Hill (except now there might be with ehrlichiosis).
Anyway, good advice from Rogelberg and others: know what you want before you go in, and make it your meeting.