Sleuthing at the Stove – Love and motivation

November 17, 2012 at 6:14 pm | Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments

September 2012 thoughts; Finally a minute to myself and I find myself bursting with commentary.  Two weeks of business and then a long weekend – as it should be!!! Love is on my mind again lately – personally and professionally.

Well that was the start of my blog back in September.  The “burst” Burst!

A lot has happened since that time – crazy business issues; personal issues; animal illness and a flood of memories!  Strange how they can happen upon you without any warning.  I have always found cooking new and interesting food as a great way to spend time effectively when feeling “stuck”  – kind of like the peanut butter I throw in the Bottom of the Kong to keep my dogs mentally engaged in the kitchen.  It is very hard to cook with flourish in my kitchen because the two Border collies follow your every move —- they really enjoy hovering around the island incase their built in vaccums are called upon.  Normally not a problem.  However the new fridge is still sitting in the middle of the kitchen as the cupboards have not come down.  This was once at the top of the list of “things to do today” but has since moved down.  It is a natural progression of sorts when it comes to chores.  What once appeared so critical can be worked around, re-prioritized, or ignored.  So i cook with abandonment in my imagination!

Madi hovering around the kitchen table.

One of my winter staples and a favorite of the family is a very simple Hot and Sour Cabbage Soup that i combine with homemade Peasant Bread and herbed Goats Butter – yes homemade. You are allowed to groan now – those of you that open cans and boxes!   I absolutely can live off of this soup in the winter and always make a big crockpot of it.  There it sits on my island counter in my country kitchen for the week – (that is if it makes it that far) for all to enjoy.  No rules – kind of an Ikea approach to eating.  Self-serve lunch – eat when you are ready.  It sits there waiting for you! This resembles investigative files – they sit waiting for you. Some days the ingredients come together and then there are those days where you know you should not have switched whole wheat flour for the white!

The soup process starts with slicing up a small cabbage or half of a large one .  I believe in cooking with what is available.  I must admit that when i see those recipes where the list of ingredients is a page long I lose interest.  As much as I like to cook I like the peasant approach – simple, savory, and fresh!  So here i am chopping up cabbage and wondering about what the heck happened at work the last few months.  We had three incredibly difficult clients to work with and all their issues were around “love”.  Mistrust of their partners love or shock at how their love for someone turned out to be so personally devastating. I originally chose as my topic love and motivation BUT having just completed an Instructional Strategies course where motivation of students was the central topic I have nothing left to say about motivation – except the following – IF YOU WANT SOMETHING GET OFF YOUR ASS AND DO IT. That’s it – nothing more to say.

Did I add that you have to turn the slow cooker on, put some olive oil in (the recipe will be included at the end of the blog or you can go to Baker Street Agency Facebook and it will be posted there)and then chop up a small onion and throw it in and let it sizzle while you prepare the other items. Sorry about that – this is kind of how my brain has been problem solving files lately – coming in at the second stage. Finished with the cabbage – throw it in. Add the water, rice vinegar, tomato sauce, and your spices. hmmmm – my mouth is watering because i live on this soup. Oh and don’t forget your carrots! My files often sit in the recesses of my brain while i play with the ingredients of the file. Sifting, chopping, dicing, mixing.

Lately, I have come to feel that the word love is overused, misunderstood, and abused. What does this really mean? Certainly as an investigator i see so many people trying to find their loved ones, trying to determine the authenticity of their relationships, the truth of the information they receive from their partner, the validation of their lives. While I can answer the questions posed factually I cannot remotely begin to explain to my clients why?. Why – well because they are assholes. Enough already with the sex-addiction crap, the emotional issues stuff, the feeling of abandonment and lack of love. I mean this is what the psychological world thrives on. But to me it has become very simple – kind of like my soup – it is just plain bad behavior. The moral thread that once wound its way through our society is broken and unrepairable. When criminals come out on top, when liars survive, when the rich (referring to recent American election) blatatnly state their disregard for the poor, when people lie without any concern for the effects, when people steal from you – financially or emotionally and find justification in their own needs – the list is endless – there is something foundationally lacking with the concepts of right and wrong! The world is full of takers, liars, abusers, criminals that are doing just fine – thank you very much. So if we realize this then we have to understand that the concept of love is not the same anymore.

The crockpot is full – just throwing in some spices and the lid goes on! Ready to slow cook for the morning. The family will wake to the aroma and know the soup is on!

Look we live in the area of Ashley Madison – where the married people go to sign up and have affairs with other married people. Did you know that 30% of the people that sign up for online dating are lying about their married status? The odds of you being a victim of love is high. I tell my clients “you should have hired me before you started a serious relationship with this person”. They agree, walk away disheartened, forget what I said and go into the next mess! Welcome to the spicy soup of life.

Apparently Dr. Phil has written a new book on life codes – the shift in moral behavior today and the reason we need to forget all those platitudes that we have been taught in life. There are a millions sayings we have heard all our life that justify our lives. The best one is – “Crime never pays”. Really? Take a look around you. Things are changing!