Thematic Photographic - On the water

Carmi at the blog "Written, Inc." posts a photographic challenge each week at Thematic Photographic. This week, the theme is "On the water."

Water has played an important part in Carmi's life. What about you? Share your images at "Written, Inc."

Click all photos to "embiggen"

 The water is all around you in Venice, Italy. The city rises up from the lagoon; the broad canals serve as roadways for transport both public and private, and in the neighborhoods, narrow waterways route quiet boat traffic.

Here, we've pulled away from the city out into the lagoon, on the vaporetto from the Fondamento Nuove stop, heading toward the islands of Murano and Burano.

The Chiesa di Santa Maria Assunta detta I Gesuiti - Church of Santa Maria Assunta -  is silhouetted against the sky. The saints and angels atop the white stone facade strive and reach upward, wind-blown and bristling above the red tile roofs, still visible as we pull away from the city.

We are off to the islands.

Here the vaporetto's wake sluices the ruins of some medieval building off the island Madonna del Monte.

Fishermen try the quiet waters off Sant 'Erasmo.

In Venice, being "on the water" is just like being anywhere else.

Back to work!

Grafitti sign left along Regent's Canal, Bethnal Green, London

I'm back at work, and back to the task of job searching.

Before we went to London, I hired a temporary worker to replace one of my colleagues, who'd found a transfer position. We interviewed people who were part of a pool of temporary workers used by my large bureaucratic organization - they provide temporary labor to the many departments here. We were specifically instructed to consider this pool of workers before we considered people from outside the organization.

I have to tell you that my expectations were initially low for filling the position. I did not think we'd get a very good person. However, I was surprised. First of all, these workers are hungry. They have been circulating in our organization for several months, and are eager to learn all the inside skills that make them valuable. Second, these workers are very practiced at job interviews. They are constantly interviewing, whether for some of the rare permanent positions that open up, or for all the temporary assignments that ebb and flow in our organization.

We offered the position to R., a very poised young woman who knocked it out of the park, interview-wise. She started work last Thursday; I gave her a tour of the building and introduced her to her new colleagues; then I began training her in her new duties.

These duties include working in our arcane financial software - an overview of our budgetary process - and a broad overview of our business model and the day-to-day flow of tasks. She stayed with me, and I think she's going to be great. She's very professional, hits all the right notes, and is eager to learn.

On Friday, just before she ended her shift, her phone, stowed away in the back of her desk, buzzed. She apologized, and asked me if it was OK to check it. I nodded.

It was our organization's HR department. She made the short list for a permanent position with another department. Could she make an interview appointment Monday (today) at three?

She was very embarrassed. I told her not to worry - I understood. Our position was temporary, and it was to be expected she was also applying for permanent positions. I told her we could adjust the schedule so she could make the interview,  and suggested that she cite the training we'd just completed as her experience using the financial software.

Today we worked some more, and she did well. I let her have a half hour breather before her interview. She returned feeling optimistic. The department said they'd have a decision by the end of the week. If they don't offer it to her, then the person they do choose must be awesome!

Meanwhile.....I've sent out a bunch of job applications to outside organizations, with no response. I've applied for a transfer position within my own organization, but it's for a more junior position than the one I already have. I'm supposed to take an exam for it on Wednesday - I have never had to take a "test" for a job before, and it's a little intimidating. What if I fail to qualify for a job that's actually a demotion for my current job?

My new hire is really impressive - maybe she should be training me?

Cellar magic

A glass of Gordon's sherry

One of the London places I'd longed to revisit was a dark, secret wine cellar we learned about on our 2009 trip. Gordon's Wine Bar is easy to overlook if you don't know what you're looking for. But this unassuming little wine shop has been in business since 1890, although the building's history goes back much further than that.

The wine shop is on the ground floor. The bar is in the cellar. We'd gone before late on a hot summer night. This time, it was a rainy winter day and lunch time, and when we came down the steep and narrow stairs, the lunchtime buffet was still being served.

Super sausages

Although Wurstkuche is the invention of two USC business grads, it's a pretty simple idea. It's a hot dog  and beer place.

You line up at the counter and order your choice of sausage from the menu. You can get fries with that. You can also choose the garnish for your dog, and your choice of dipping sauce for your fries. The beer selection is a beer-lover's dream; Belgian and German beers both on draft and bottled.

Pay for your meal and then find a place to sit in the large dining room down the long dark hallway - communal tables with benches, a few smaller tables, and a bar can accommodate some two hundred diners, and it's always busy.

There's almost always a line at the counter, and the helpful staff takes your beer order while you wait - and delivers it, so you can sip your suds while you wait - and decide what kind of sausage to order.

In addition to the beer selection, the draw here is the inventive variety of sausage. There are over twenty varieties, from the common kielbasa to the exotic crocodile andouille. There are vegetarian sausages as well as sausages made from duck, lamb, bison, rabbit and even rattlesnake.

We ordered and then found a free table by the windows. A folded steel artifact, painted in red and stenciled with our order number guided the server to us when our meal was ready.

I went for a kiebasa with caramelized onions and sweet peppers, while [The Man I Love] chose duck and bacon sausage with jalapeno, and hot peppers instead of sweet for his garnish.

We split a large order of fries, which were amazingly good. Belgian-style double-fried, they were hot and crispy and held up well as they cooled, without getting soggy. We had a little pot of curry ketchup and another of chipotle aioli for dipping. I loved the aioli; the ketchup just tasted like regular ketchup that had been given a shake of curry powder.

Big squeeze bottles of mustard in many varieties were arrayed on the tables, and patrons swapped and borrowed them with casual cheer and good nature.

My kielbasa was good - porky and juicy with a nice snap to the casing. The onions and peppers were almost too much, and I raked some of them off with my fingers and ate them like a separate amuse-bouche. The top-split bun was nice, too; warm and with a nice yeast-baked taste, but not overwhelming or too hard.

And the beer! Wurstkuche doesn't include wine on its menu, although the counter staff said you could order it at the bar in the dining area. I'd been enjoying English cider during our London trip, so I was intrigued by a Belgian witbier fermented with apples, called Floris Apple Ale. It had an extraordinary apple-y aroma and flavor - a bit sweet but refreshing.

Apple ale on the left, Tripel Karmeliet on the right

[The Man I Love] had a Tripel Karmeliet, which he said was delicious.

 The clientele is equally exotic, exhibiting a finely tuned hipster aesthetic befitting Wurstkuche's location in the downtown Arts District. The decor is brick, black, and angular. Tattooes, trilby hats, tortoiseshell spectacles - make up the fashion statement here. It's clearly a young clientele - the picnic benches and the loud music are aimed at a young demographic.

Even so, there were some families with kids there - young hipster families, of course, but kids and hot dogs are a universal combination, even when Dad can have his with a Belgian tripel draft and Mom's having her french fries with a white truffle oil glaze.

3rd and Traction, condos and street art. Click to "embiggen"

This neighborhood was once a dark and somewhat dangerous place, frequently by pioneering artists working in rough warehouses, but now the brickwork and garage doors are festooned with signs advertising luxury "loft" condos, and the warehouse walls are colorful with street art.

Just across Alameda is Little Tokyo and MOCA's Geffen Contemporary branch. The Southern California Institute of Archtecture - SciARC - is located just a block or two away.  This artsy and trendy milieu puts its stamp on a place like Wurstkuche, which probably has something to do with its success, drawing people from elsewhere in LA to check out the same.  Still, at its heart it's just a great place to grab a hot dog and a beer.

In the wind

 Street art seen in downtown LA's Arts District.

All shapes and sizes

From the British Museum. Click to "embiggen"

These figurines were made of bone and ivory, between 4000 and 3600 BC, in Naqada, a town on the west bank of the Nile River in Egypt.

We really do come in all shapes and sizes, don't we?

Matsutake hot pot

My junior year in college, I left the dormitory to share an apartment a couple of blocks off campus with three other girls.  My father, by that time an enthusiastic connoisseur of Asian food, taught me a dish to cook in my new kitchen.

Sukiyaki is the perfect dish for a young cook. It is both easy and exotic. Although it has a lot of ingredients, the method is simple. It's fast, too, providing almost instant gratification.

Sukiyaki is one of many Japanese dishes called nabemono, or hot-pot. A dish for wintertime, they are usually cooked at the table-top on a portable stove, or as my father taught me, in an electric skillet.

On to 2013

First flowers of the year

Before looking ahead to 2013, I'm taking a quick look back into 2012.

It was a pretty good year for me, personally. I studied French again. I saw some wonderful art exhibits. I ate some delicious meals. I met my Secret Boyfriend in the flesh!  I had some interesting and challenging assignments at work. I attended a writing workshop. I saw some old friends again, renewing our acquaintance - and I met some internet friends in person. I visited our son, and proudly noted his accomplishments and maturity.

After a highly charged political year, our country had an election that, in my opinion, turned out as it should.

I traveled, to Seattle, to Venice and Paris, to London - twice!

There were setbacks. We had to repair some damage to our house. I learned I'm losing my job.

And sadness - I lost a dear friend.

What to do in 2013?

• I hope to take another French class.
• I want to try to sell my writing.
• Put the books back on my bookshelves!
• Clean the basement
• Start swimming again, or walk farther
• I hope to travel, even modestly, and take pleasure in seeing new places.
• I hope to find an occupation that will make me fulfilled - whether it's a new job or self-employment
• I hope to keep my friendships strong; reconnect with those I've lost; and make new friends.

And help [The Man I Love] make his 2013 wishes happen, too.

How about you? How did 2012 treat you, and what do you hope for 2013?

OK, this is really scary

Me and Max, December 2012

[The Man I Love] posted a photo he took of our son and me on his Facebook page. We were sitting in a Bethnal Green pub, browsing a map of London on an I-phone

It made me remember a photo I posted in this blog a couple of years ago, of my mother and her oldest son - my brother S - doing a crossword puzzle together.

S and Mom, 2007

 Life repeats, there are human patterns that recur from generation to generation. Moms instruct their children, no matter how mature they are.

Of course, this usually doesn't take place in a pub........!