#282 - Pulling My Pork

It was a tough job getting out of bed this morning.

I had a great sleep, but after the Sunday night into Monday morning writing session, I was still catching up.

Luckily, this week at work has been a little more relaxed as we have basically caught up to the team that feeds us our work. It’s a great time to catch up on things and do some projects that will help the team in the future.

Today we started by doing one on one calls with each of the painters and talking about things we have noticed, what they are doing well and things we’d like to see going forward. These are informal meeting through the Teams app, and it allows the painters to feel free to ask questions without being in front of a large group.

I spent my day doing revision notes, calls and approvals. We also had a townhall meeting for our division within the bigger company to introduce the heads of divisions and talk about upcoming projects. These are all things I can’t talk about in detail. Our clients take information security very seriously and so do we.

It was better news than we’d heard in a longtime, but not the big news we are all secretly hoping for. I was proud to see the employees asking some hard-hitting questions at the end about AI usage, benefits, raises and all kinds of other relevant things.

Everyone in the call answered the questions and didn’t shy away from them and I appreciate that from a management team

I took a short walk at lunch because my body needed to be doing something other that sitting for a while. It was another perfect day out there to take a walk. Robyn had to go to the collision reporting center to get her car photographed for the little fender bender she had the other day. She had to wait longer than expected, so I walked alone.

The afternoon was more of the same and by five I was ready to throw in the towel for the day. I’d promised kiddo #2 I would provide his film crew with some pulled pork as I was volunteered to be the Craft Services for the production.

It was a way for me to participate but not have to be around all the time. Who wants their stepdad hanging around when you are filming your first masterpiece anyway. The main set is our house, so we have been gently asked to be somewhere else for the day.

I left the house to pick up some pork shoulder and another bottle of Diana’s Original Sauce at my local Longo’s, but when I got there, they were doing some sort of renovation. The meat department was not as fully stocked as usual, and I had to go to Fortino’s to find the pork.

While I was there, I helped myself to one of their porchetta sandwiches, because why not!

Back home I put the pork into the slow cooker and added some spices, onions and a splash of apple juice. I drizzled a little bit of the Diana’s sauce in for good measure.

I usually let it cook for six to eight hours before pulling the pork apart, but that would put me at two AM by the time it was done.

I set a six-and-a-half-hour timer.

Robyn came back from her extra job and asked if I wanted to go for a walk. My immediate response was no! But then I relented, knowing I needed the exercise and I always feel better afterwards. It’s the starting that I don’t like. Same with my writing, I guess.

The weather was nice and had cooled off a little, but it still came home covered in sweat.

We grabbed a shower and settled in for a bit of rest.

The second season of A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder was available on Netflix, so we got comfortable and watched two episodes.

By the time it we stopped watching, it was time to check on the pulled pork. It wasn’t completely done yet, but I pulled it apart and set it back into the slow cooker with lots of Diana’s sauce to cook for another hour and a half.

While I waited for the pork to finish, I went down to the writing cave to get some work done.

And that’s all that fit for print.

Until tomorrow.