Drunken Goat Cheese

We had some people over to celebrate the ending of one year and the beginning of another. In addition to the robust meal she prepared, my wife also served a platter of assorted cheeses and crackers. As I picked through the sampler, I noticed the name on one of the cheeses said “Murcia Drunken Goat Cheese.” Of course I was instantly intrigued and filled with questions. The main one being, “Do they get the goat drunk before milking her, or does she do that on her own?”

I mean is the Murcia region of Spain filled with a whole population of alcoholic goats and the cheese companies decided to capitalize on their inebriated state to take the goats’ milk? I think maybe the goats are enjoying life a bit too much, and by extension now we can too! The cheese was actually very tasty.

Suitcase Full of Gifts

My mother-in-law came to town from Greece tonight. After she’d showered and eaten, it was after nine o’clock. Even though she was exhausted, and my son needed to go to bed, she insisted on unpacking her suitcase to give him all his gifts.

All of my in-laws do the exact same thing. It’s not the fact that they bring gifts, or that they want to give them to us. It’s the fact that they persist in doing that before doing anything else. Sometimes it’s done before we can even properly welcome them into our home. They are so excited to give the gifts and see the reaction, that they can’t contain themselves.

Most of the gifts were my son’s Christmas gifts, but she couldn’t even wait a few days to give them to him. My in-laws are generous to a fault, showering us with blessings, but I still find it funny that you can always count on the gift bazaar happening within minutes of arrival.

The funniest part is that my spousal unit will do the same thing when she goes to Greece. It’s like the “sickness” takes hold of her, and she turns into a different person. I’m usually tired and hungry after our 16-hour flight, but none of that matters until we deliver the gifts!

Conviction Versus Blood

There comes a point when conviction and beliefs supersede blood. It’s like the battle lines drawn in the Civil War. Brother fought brother because their views on slavery and the inequality of men didn’t align.

I’m scared that soon I will have to make a hard choice never to see my family again. Some of them continue to be steadfast in their belief not to be vaccinated. Whether that be from some political standpoint or from the belief that things aren’t really that bad, it still doesn’t align with my beliefs or what I want to protect my immediate family. And if the risk gets too great in my opinion, and they become a danger, I will decide to never see them again in person. I wish it didn’t have to come to that, but I will do it. I won’t hesitate.

It’s their choice to believe what they want, as it is mine. It’s sad that the world had to even be put into this predicament. But the truth is that it’s reality, and I will choose my beliefs over blood. I will miss them. I will pray for them and their health and safety. I will love them. But not to their face.

It’s their choice. Choices come with consequences. At some point, everyone has to choose how tightly they will hold onto their beliefs over family and friends. My hard choice is to give them up. Their hard choice is to not be in our lives anymore. We can’t both have what we want, unless we both lose. The only way we both win is for one of us to give in on our convictions. But it can’t be me. The risk is too great.

Army of One

I decided to enter a walking challenge at work. Essentially, people team up and compete against each other to accumulate the greatest number of steps throughout the month. I had participated in a similar event back in September with members of my integration team. We won the event by a comfortable margin, but the experience irritated me. Partly because half our team barely contributed to the total. And partly because I realized that the tracking program doesn’t just add up the total steps for the team. It takes the total and divides it by the total number of people on the team. In this way, each team gets a daily average. I get that this is supposed to level-set teams so that teams with fewer members can still be competitive. But the downside is that the more “dead weight” you have on the team, the more watered down the steps of a single motivated person will be. This is what happened to the few people on our team that took the challenge seriously.

So, this time around, I decided to branch out on my own and do the challenge solo. Now, I get credit for every step I do, instead of having to divide it across other people. After just three days in, I was dominating the challenge. I was already 65,000 steps ahead of second place. After one week, I had already surpassed the total challenge goal steps of 154,000 steps.

It’s gotten so bad that one of the guys on my team told me that his wife was mad at me because I was so far ahead. She’s determined to catch and pass me. Unfortunately, she made the classic mistake of believing that more people on her team would give her an advantage. So, she recruited her husband to walk too. Now, he’s also mad at me because she’s making him exercise. If you think about it, I’m actually increasing the activity level of the entire organization. Everyone is walking more and trying harder to catch me. I may be the villain, but people should be thanking me for exploiting the loopholes and taking a very calculated approach to this challenge. So, you’re all welcome in advance.

UPDATE: Apparently, my legendary status as the villain has gained wider appeal. Several of the teams that were desperately trying to catch me have added additional people to their ranks in an attempt to increase their step count. I couldn’t help but laugh. While this logically makes sense, the formula the program uses to average steps across the team actually means that these teams are hurting themselves and will ultimately only fall further behind. But on the flip side, even more people are now getting exercise in an attempt to dethrone me!